Free Republic

WASHINGTON – The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate. Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people." The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Human-Rights-Campaign-Dinner/ THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 10, 2009 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN DINNER Walter E. Convention Center Washington, D.C. 8:10 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Please, you're making me blush. (Laughter.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, Barack! THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) To Joe Solmonese, who's doing an outstanding job on behalf of HRC. (Applause.) To my great friend and supporter, Terry Bean, co-founder of HRC. (Applause.) Representative Patrick Kennedy. (Applause.) David Huebner, the...

Last month, the Obama administration’s decision to dismiss a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in a clear case of voter intimidation (caught on videotape and circulated on the internet) drew scrutiny from Congress and from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. That scrutiny has now resulted in one announced investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and set the stage for a battle between the administration and the Commission. In June, the Commission sent a letter of inquiry to the Justice Department demanding an explanation for the dismissal of the case against all but one...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release June 1, 2009 LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PRIDE MONTH, 2009 - - - - - - - BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION Forty years ago, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Out of this resistance, the LGBT rights movement in America was born. During LGBT Pride...

At the end of this month, the gay community will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which began the gay liberation movement. This season, known in gay circles simply as “Pride,” will be particularly emotional because of the gay marriage avalanche. While gays and lesbians have much to be proud of (such as early health organizing around the devastating AIDS epidemic), gay history since Stonewall is unfortunately stained with selfishness and arrogance, traits that ironically were once themselves called pride — back when that wasn’t a compliment. Having experienced the closet and coming out as a gay man...

Nancy Pelosi just held a "news conference." Reporters tripped over one another to ask her about her ever more tangled pack of lies concerning not knowing about interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which she defines as "torture." Standing there in her Imperial Attitude of Me Queem You Peasant, she replied that she would answer no questions about it since 'she had already said everything she was going to say.' The press obediently went on to ask her other questions regarding how DC has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC and its lobbyists. After sneeringly denying a question or two,...

It’s a national turning point. A figurative call to arms for the queer community. The cross-country response to the passage of California’s Proposition 8 and other anti-gay ballot initiatives is among the greatest and loudest rallying cries for equality ever heard from the LGBT community. Journalist Rex Wockner is calling it “Stonewall 2.0” Others are talking about a new wave of inspiration and the death of a “passive era” of LGBT lobbying and advocacy. Writer Andrew Sullivan says groups like the Human Rights Campaign are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the face of the need to adapt to new realities and...

Obama's legal team seeks special prosecutor for voter registration probe By TODD SPANGLER • FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF • October 17, 2008 WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s legal team wants a special prosecutor to determine whether partisan politics is at play in a reported though unconfirmed Justice Department investigation of a voter registration effort which has been the target of numerous complaints of late, including one in Michigan. With the election just over two weeks away, Bob Bauer, Obama’s chief lawyer, said in a conference call with reporters this afternoon that he is asking U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to to...

ALBANY - Gov. Spitzer yesterday filed legal papers to quash subpoenas issued by a state Senate committee for documents pertaining to the Dirty Tricks Scandal. In exerting executive privilege, the Spitzer administration argued in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court that the Senate Investigation Committee's request for documents was partisan in nature and overstepped its legal bounds. --- snip --- Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said, "Allowing the Senate to move forward with its investigation would set a dangerous precedent that would allow it to initiate costly investigations at will against any political opponent."

excerpt from 'FAQ' What is the Communist Party? The Communist Party USA is an organization of revolutionaries working to bring about social change in a conscious, progressive direction. We understand the connection between working for democratic reforms and improvements in living standards today, and building a movement large enough and united enough to create revolutionary change and socialism in the future. We are a legal political party, which runs candidates, publishes a weekly newspaper and a monthly magazine. We organize contingents in most major demonstrations, support workers’ struggles for decent wages and working conditions, and participate in many other ways...

Washington, DC – Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption announced today that it filed a lawsuit on July 16, 2007 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration to obtain access to the following records from the Clinton Presidential Library: “First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s calendar, to include but not limited to her daily office diary, schedule, day planner, telephone log book, and chronological file.” The Archives, which operates and maintains Clinton Presidential Library records, failed to respond to Judicial Watch’s April 5, 2006 Freedom...

NEW YORK – New York's gay pride parade is traditionally a mix of politics and campy pageantry, and the state Assembly's move toward legalizing same-sex marriage has heightened the atmosphere this year. But parade organizers are smarting over the city's rejection of a request to hold a street fair in an area with the city's heaviest concentration of gay-oriented businesses. The parade, set for Sunday on Fifth Avenue, is one of dozens that take place annually around the world. It commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising, in which patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar resisted a police raid. Dennis Spafford,...

Mention the name Charles Pickering to anyone but the most committed news junkie, and you’re apt to get a blank look or, at best, one of dim recognition. In the era of the 24-hour news cycle aimed at the ever-shortening attention span, the bitter Senate battles over the federal judiciary in which Pickering played so dramatic a part a few years back can seem like ancient history. But with the publication of A Price Too High, Pickering’s insider account of the nearly four years he spent in limbo as a nominee to the federal bench, as Democrats and their press...

CHICAGO, May 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM), the group of homosexual activists that self-describes itself as “Catholic” despite its open stance against significant moral teachings of the Church, announced today that they will again be “challenging the Catholic Church's hierarchy” this upcoming Pentecost Sunday, May 27. RSM members wear a 2-inch wide ribbon of rainbow colors across their shoulders (a symbol of the modern homosexual movement). They then present themselves to receive communion in Cathedrals and parishes across the nation in protest against the Catholic teaching that those who publicly and stubbornly persist in living...

Former Gov. James McGreevey, who resigned from office after revealing that he was gay and had an affair with a male staffer, is seeking custody of his 5-year-old daughter and child support from his estranged wife. The revised divorce lawsuit by McGreevey, who resigned in November 2004, does not mention the "matrimonial settlement agreement" that McGreevey originally said had resolved all custody and support issues concerning his daughter, Jacqueline. McGreevey's wife, Dina Matos, has 35 days to respond to the revised filing. The papers filed last month in Union County Superior Court ask the judge to assign McGreevey custody, to...

Former Governor McGreevey is seeking sole custody of his five-year old daughter and child support from his estranged wife. In a revised divorce lawsuit filed in Elizabeth, the nation's first openly gay governor does not mention a "matrimonial settlement agreement" that McGreevey originally said had resolved all issues of custody and support. McGreevey declined to discuss particulars with The Star-Ledger of Newark. The newspaper says Dina Matos McGreevey hung up without answering questions when contacted by cell phone yesterday. Matos McGreevey has not filed a formal response. The two have lived apart since November 2004. That's when McGreevey resigned for...

Human Rights Campaign-Hillary Rodham Clinton VIDEO Recently, Hillary Clinton told the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's leading homosexual-rights group in an unpublicized speech, "I am proud to stand by your side." She said, The marriage amendment " was wedge politics at its worst. It was mean-spirited, it was against the entire forward movement of American history. It was the first time anyone was proposing we amend the Constitution to deny citizens rights rather than widen the circle of rights and opportunities." "In the end, we stopped the Federal Marriage Amendment and we sent a strong message that we will not...

http://www.iht.com/articles/1999/09/14/fash.t_0.php Excerpt from the Herald Tribune Step right up! It's the greatest fashion show on earth! Start with Adam and Eve and move right on to cyberspace! . Your master of ceremonies? Come forward, Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York, who planned what he described, with customary bravura, as "the fashion experience of the millennium." Just close off Times Square, fill it with a space-age runway and 100,000 people — and watch the public cheer. . Monday night's fashion fest was conceived as a kick-off to NYC 2000 — the city's millennial celebrations. This upscale dress rehearsal for the year-end's...

Platform and positions NAMBLA describes itself as a "support group for intergenerational relationships," and uses the slogan "sexual freedom for all." According to the group's web site, its aim is to "support the rights of youth as well as adults to choose the partners with whom they wish to share and enjoy their bodies." Google Search of NAMBLA's IP http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=216.220.97.17&btnG=Search One of the group's arguments is that age of consent laws can unnecessarily criminalize sexual relationships between adults and minors (particularly boys). http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/nambla.html In 1980 a NAMBLA general meeting passed a resolution, proposed by Tom Reeves, which said: "(1) The...

Rudy Giuliani: The Knight and ‘The Queen’ According to The London Times, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gives kisses before he leaves every morning, but to neither his estranged wife, nor his girlfriend. Instead, says The Times, “Sir Rudy” gives a peck on the cheek to the two homosexual men he’s living with. “We always get a little kiss, it’s cute,” says wealthy car dealer Howard Koeppel, with whom Giuliani has been sharing an apartment since June. When Giuliani was recently knighted, Koeppel tells The Times that he told “Sir Rudy” to call him “Queen Howard.” Koeppel (63) and...

Thursday, June 24, 1999 -- Pictured are STONEWALL Veterans' Association ("S.V.A.") Ambassadress Cristina Hayworth (up from Puerto Rico) with a Cuban cigar gift for Mayor RWG (which he had to "by law" refuse) and bussing a very amused and fun-filled New York City Mayor Rudy W. Giuliani with S.V.A. President Williamson Henderson laughing big time and, in the rear, S.V.A. Vice-President Jeremiah Newton is beaming. Literally to the far left is former and brief S.V.A. Corresponding Secretary (she was still allegedly working on her first memo) Harriet "SchMo" Garblestein. It's the first time we ever saw her smile! The Mayor...

Move over, Borat. The hottest new voice in comedy is Vladimir Putin, otherwise known as the man who saved Russia from freedom and democracy. Putin convulsed his audience at the Munich Conference on Security with this sparkling one-liner: “Nobody feels secure any more, because nobody can take safety behind the stone wall of international law.” International law has been likened to many things—gauze, cotton, clouds, tissue paper, vapor—but a “stone wall?” Where did Putin come up with this utterly original metaphor? Perhaps from the idealistic years of his youth, when he proved his devotion to making people secure by going...

This Day In History | Civil War May 2 1863 Jackson flanks Hooker at Chancellorsville Stonewall Jackson administers a devastating defeat to the Army of the Potomac. In one of the most stunning upsets of the war, a vastly outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia sent the Army of the Potomac, commanded by General Joseph Hooker, back to Washington in defeat. Hooker, who headed for Lee's army confident and numerically superior, had sent part of his force to encounter Lee's troops at Fredericksburg the day before, while the rest swung west to approach Lee from the rear. Meanwhile, Lee had left...

This Day In History | Civil War May 10 1863 Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson dies The South loses one of its boldest and most colorful generals on this day. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson died of pneumonia a week after losing his arm when his own troops accidentally fired on him during the Battle of Chancellorsville. In the first two years of the war, Jackson terrorized Union commanders and led his army corps on bold and daring marches. He was the perfect complement to Robert E. Lee. A native Virginian, Jackson grew up in poverty in Clarksburg, in the mountains of...

The Royal Air Force has called in a gay pressure group to help solve its recruitment crisis. The Service will take advice from Stonewall on how to make itself more attractive to homosexual and bisexual men and women, and is aiming to spend tens of thousands of pounds on advertising in the "pink" media. As part of the initiative, the RAF will pay Stonewall an undisclosed sum to join its "Diversity Champions" programme, under which commanders have to demonstrate the Service's commitment to implementing a range of policies to promote "lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) equality in the workplace". The...

The Bay State, the birthplace of gay marriage, is on the cusp of another revolution in alternative living that could prove to be just as controversial - gay condo communities. Developers across the country are drawing up plans for condo projects - and sometimes even whole communities - targeted at gay and lesbian buyers. And Massachusetts is proving to be a fertile laboratory for this experiment. Two planned developments on either end of the state, the Stonewall at Audubon Circle in the Fenway and Paradise One in Easthampton, are pioneering condo complexes marketed to older gay and lesbian residents. There...

In the months leading up to the 2006 midterm elections, as pundits and bloggers looked forward to the '08 presidential election, there was almost a universal sense of conventional wisdom that John McCain was the plainly recognized frontrunner, whereas Rudy Giuliani's stature as a contender would immediately plummet "once those conservatives found out about those liberal social views of Rudy's." Then, during the summer of 2006, the mainstream media and beltway thinkers had their proof. A serious political action organization was formed by a group of hardcore social conservatives, dedicated to tearing down any chance of Rudy's at grabbing the...

THE bickering has begun among California's politicians over President George W. Bush's proposal to use the National Guard to secure the Mexican border. Last week, state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, threw a fit over deployment: "As a matter of moral principle and constitutional precedent, we will not be party to budgeting one dime to enable any role for the California National Guard in border monitoring until the Senate immediately and thoroughly reviews the implications of this use of state funds and personnel," he wrote to the budget committee chairman. In other words, stonewall — a game the...

The full grovelBy Thomas LifsonJan. 1,2006 Byron Calame, public editor of the New York Times, addresses his newspaper's role in publishing leaked classified information about the NSA's surveillance program. As the Department of Justice has launched an investigation of the probably criminal leaking and possibly criminal publication of the data, interest in the matter could not be higher. Shockingly enough, his superiors stonewall him when it comes to explaining why they waited a year to publish the revelations. Moreover, their story about the actual time interval of the delay has certain inconsistencies. Usually, when those under investigation for possible criminal...

The debate comes down to this: Was Stonewall-Flanders Elementary School named for the legendary Confederate general Stonewall Jackson or for stone fences that adorned front yards in the neighborhood? Harlandale Independent School District trustees will consider the question as they decide whether to grant a former district administrator's request to rename the school after César Chávez, the late social activist. "We don't have any historical evidence that it was, indeed, named for Stonewall Jackson," district spokesman David Ochoa said Monday, when the Board of Trustees heard the proposal. Nick Calzoncit thinks otherwise, though he can provide no concrete evidence to...

Aug. 9, 1862, was a hot and dusty day, a grueling time to be marching into war. Confederate soldiers struggling through the blistering heat on their way from Gordonsville that day were about to engage in a battle that would go down as the deadliest in Culpeper County history. The Battle of Cedar Mountain, the only time Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is known to have drawn his sword in combat, is approaching its 143rd anniversary, and the fledgling preservationist group Friends of the Cedar Mountain Battlefield has planned a weekend of activities to commemorate the event. The group, in partnership...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A partisan meltdown fueled by Democrat protests in the Indiana House on Tuesday kept the chamber in gridlock as a midnight deadline passed to advance dozens of bills, including ones to mandate statewide observance of daylight-saving time and to give the governor's inspector general prosecutorial powers. The Republican-controlled House convened shortly after 9 a.m., but Democrats upset about several bills they consider partisan power grabs left the floor to meet privately and never returned. House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, held up a 5-inch stack of bills that Republicans wanted passed in a single day, and told...

Gen. Stonewall JacksonFrom the original image in the VMI Archives Photograph collection Stonewall Jackson Biographical Information This page provides a brief chronology of significant events. For more detailed information, consult one of the several published biographies of Jackson. We highly recommend Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, by James I. Robertson, Jr.. (Macmillan Publishing, ©1997). This book is available in most public and academic libraries. Note: Jackson was born and grew up in what is now the state of West Virginia. Until 1863, this area was part of Virginia. 1824 January 21Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born at...

US Calls on UN Chief to Release All Oil-for-Food Facts VOA 30/11/2004 10:48 Washington's ambassador to the United Nations has urged Secretary-General Kofi Annan to promptly release all information concerning the scandal-ridden Iraq oil-for-food program. The world body was rocked over the weekend by revelations that a key oil-for food contractor made regular payments to Mr. Annan's son. U.S. Ambassador John Danforth met privately with the secretary-general Monday to discuss the burgeoning investigation into alleged corruption in the oil for food program. The meeting came on the heels of news reports that Mr. Annan's 27-year-old son, Kojo Annan, received monthly...

    CARL BERNSTEIN: RATHERGATE MAY BE ANOTHER WATERGATE (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) NEW! compleatjohnkerry.blogspot.com NEW! unfitforcommand.blogspot.comjohnkerryisdangerousforamerica.blogspot.com   CLUELESS: O'REILLY AND PODHORETZ ON RATHERGATE THE KERRY-RATHER-BARNES FORGERIES DECONSTRUCTEDWHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA 9.14.04 Dear Mr. O'Reilly, Contrary to your discussion tonight with John Podhoretz ("The O'Reilly Factor"-FoxNew), the authenticity of the Dan Rather memos is no longer open to debate. Irrefutable proof on multiple levels now exists that the memos are forgeries. Your problem seems to be that either you lack the technical expertise to evaluate the material... or you never examined the...

Freeper hford02 (Since Dec 13, 2000)- from CBS Statement Expect Today (Per FOX news):CBS is buying time with this stonewall tactic. I think that THEY'RE TRYING TO FORGE THE FORGERIES. They know that the presentation of mechanically produced exact replicas will weld their case against Bush. I'm very afraid that some company with linotype capability is working on this right now.If these "forged forgeries" show up who would be left to denounce them but a bunch of right-wing lunatics in pajamas?

On behalf of the Stonewall Democratic Federation, the national organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Democrats, I want to apologize to some people whose peace of mind we seem to be disturbing. I want to apologize to the various self-proclaimed divine messengers who appear deeply troubled by a dark plot they label the "gay agenda."

Today we morn the great loss of Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Who died 141 years ago today. May the greatest General ever to walk the face of the earth Rest in Peace.

<p>May 4, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The United Nations yesterday threw up a stone wall in the oil-for-food scandal, insisting that contracts between the world body and private companies should not be turned over to investigators. In a defiant move that has infuriated probers, Secretary-General Kofi Annan threw his support behind a letter from former oil-for-food head Benon Sevan to officials of a Dutch company that inspected Iraqi oil shipments. The letter directed the company not to hand over documents to congressional committees and other "governmental authorities."</p>

MR. RUSSERT: The Boston Globe reports that your commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibberd has suggested that you perhaps didn't earn your first Purple Heart and question whether you should have left Vietnam after six months. In order to deal with those kinds of issues, when I asked President Bush about his service in the Texas Guard, he agreed to release all his military records, health records, everything. Would you agree to release all your military records? SEN. KERRY: I have. I've shown them--they're available to you to come and look at. I think that's a very unfair characterization by...

Subject: Don't let Bush question your patriotism Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 19:24:07 -0500 From: "Democratic Party" dnc-002Nf03W5y@mailer.democrats.org To: "Jim Robinson" webmaster@freerepublic.com GOP Revs Up Attack Machine Dear Jim Robinson, This time, they have gone too far. We know Republicans are willing to politicize the attacks of September 11. Karl Rove explicitly told them to do so in the 2002 elections, and the Republicans even sold a September 11 picture of George W. Bush to raise money. But now the Bush attack machine has crossed the line again. The RNC has released an advertisement that questions our Democratic candidates' commitment...

Even though all my friends, family and acquaintances know of my conservative politcs, someone has purchased a subscription to "Mother Jones" in my name. For those of you unfamiliar with this lefty, pinko publication, it features such well-known purveyors of joy and optimism as Molly Ivins. Despite repeated politely worded requests to MJ customer service asking who I may thank for this "gift", I have been stonewalled. Not even an auto response answer. Frankly, I'm embarrassed to even have my letter carrier witness my name on this magazine as it does not come in a plain brown wrapper. This malice...

While reporters usually pretend that Bill and Hillary Clinton's legal problems are behind them, Mrs. Clinton seems to know better. That is, at least judging by the way she's handling the latest lawsuit filed against her. Sen. Clinton's office spent a significant part of this week dodging media questions about Stan Lee Media co-founder Peter Paul, who claimed in court documents filed in Los Angeles last week that she and her husband accepted $2 million from him and reported only a tiny fraction to the Federal Election Commission. "Clinton's Senate staff did not respond to the Associated Press' repeated...

<p>August 19, 2003 -- FORMER New York cops Frank Toscano and Richie Ornstein are making a movie titled "RMP 2499" about the 1969 Stonewall riot. The melee erupted one night when police confronted a transvestite screaming in the middle of Christopher Street outside the packed gay bar, which was torched in the battle - igniting a series of "gay liberation" riots by homosexuals who claimed they were victims of harassment. Ornstein insists that if the cross-dresser hadn't been screaming, "there may never have been a riot," and cites the cop-gay softball game that took place a few years later (cops 10, gays 0) as evidence that tensions were eventually resolved. Ornstein says he and Toscano are aiming for an Oscar.</p>

<p>STONEWALL - Five North DeSoto Middle School students ages 11 and 12 got sick after allegedly ingesting a mixture of powdered cocaine and prescription pills while at school Friday morning, authorities said.</p> <p>Another five middle school students may have ingested the drugs but did not get sick or may have had knowledge the drugs were on campus. The 10 youths face mandatory expulsion from school and possible arrest, officials said.</p>

People sometimes ask me if I am anti-government. My answer is, Not at all. I am simply opposed to the idea of government trampling all over the freedoms that are guaranteed to “We the People” by the Constitution. In other words, I am opposed, not to lawful government, but to statism—the unlawful arrogation of political power. Most of all, I am pro-freedom. The anti-big government movement is not an anti-American movement. On the contrary. At its core, it simply seeks to bind the government by the “chains of the Constitution,” as Thomas Jefferson once put it. It is America at...

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 2, 2002--Inecom Entertainment, Inc. today announced the release of the latest entry in its documentary series on the American Civil War. "Titled Civil War Minutes - Confederate," this set of two DVD's or four videotapes totals 180 minutes and is designed for direct-to-home video as well as schools, libraries and other institutions. Whereas the original Civil War Minutes, released in 2001, featured episodes based mainly on Union soldiers and artifacts, the new production focuses on the Confederate side."'In Civil War Minutes - Confederate,' we tell the stories behind important Confederate players and battles," explained Co-writer Michael Kraus. "Although...

<p>When the Battle of Antietam started, eighth-grade students from Wilson Middle School in Chowchilla were scattered along the rope line, all angling for an unobstructed view of the carnage.</p> <p>For those within earshot, history teacher Mike Martin was offering a running commentary.</p>