Free Republic

Right-wing women rock. Not for us the sturdy, honest calves of the New Democrat/Green Party female, honed on eco-tourist rainforest hikes. Those legs are often on unfortunate display, extending from a knee-length tweed skirt as hairy as the legs themselves, and end in a pair of Birkenstocks. I have yet to see a pair of Birkenstock women's shoes that didn't look like part of the required uniform for police SWAT teams. Sensible shoes are one thing ... quite another to don a pair that look like they're meant for rappelling down the sides of buildings with a Heckler & Koch...

NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him. Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary now faces 45 days in the district’s reform...

I did some research this week end, and this is my humble presentation. I don't think all them folks in Detroit deserve the poverty Democrats have dished up. My Thesis comes from an argument over some uninformed retiree whose blamed Bush for this economic nightmare: Arguing over ‘Bush #2’, I countered, “Without the Bush tax cuts, the current poverty levels would have been higher”.Now I'm going to back that up with real evidence, Mr President. January 29, 2007 Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts http://www.heritage.org/research/taxes/bg2001.cfm Despite surging economic growth and 5 million new jobs since 2003, critics also charge...

Ga. suspect in Ala. deputy death had long record COLUMBUS, Ga. -- A Georgia man had been booked into a jail 16 times in the past 11 years and was on parole from a 2007 felony drug conviction when charged with capital murder in the death of an Alabama deputy last week, the Ledger-Enquirer reported. The Columbus newspaper reported Sunday that Gregory Lance Henderson, 31, had been ordered to serve three years in prison in 2007 but was out on parole after about 15 months when arrested in the death Thursday of Lee County Deputy James Anderson, 39. The Columbus...

It was a rough night for CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday night's "Jeopardy!" The "Situation Room" anchor came in last — and even in the red before Final Jeopardy — and lost to Dana Delany and Andy Richter.

'The Age of Stupid': a wakeup call on climateby Jerome Cartillier – 36 mins ago PARIS (AFP) – Could we, the human race, really miss an ever-narrowing chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming? "The Age of Stupid," which will be screened in hundreds of venues around the world next week, contemplates this grim scenario with the open aim of galvanising a collective effort to prevent it. Former UN chief Kofi Annan is expected to attend a special "green carpet" showing in New York Monday, on the eve of the world's first United Nation's climate summit....

34 men and women have been arrested in an undercover prostitution sting called "Operation Hot Date." Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says undercover detectives talked to women who advertised themselves on Craigslist from Thursday through Saturday, September 10-12.

<p>I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend.</p> <p>I made a first post in the general section yesterday and would like to see what sort of opinions I can find here amongst those who perhaps have a more relogiously attuned perspective.</p>

Aug. 30, 2009 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal SHERMAN FREDERICK: Enough is enough, Harry Stop the childish bullying This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we...

Woman burned filling gas can August 28, 2009 SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP A 27-year-old Joliet woman suffered second-degree burns after using a cigarette lighter to see how much gas was in the can she was filling. Police reports say it was about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday when the woman drove to the 7-Eleven at 1609 E. Cass St. in Joliet in a yellow 1970 Chevrolet. "(The woman) was filling up a gas can, which was sitting on the passenger seat of the car. (She) then used a lighter to use as a light to observe how full the can was," police said....

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A 57-year-old man was treated for a serious hand wound Tuesday after Charleston Police say he tried to drill through a live round to make a keychain ornament. It happened at about 1 p.m. at the man's home on the city's west side. Sgt. Eric Hodges with the Charleston Police Department says the man was drilling through a .30-06 deer rifle round when he saw a spark and the ammunition exploded, causing serious injuries to his left hand. Hodges says the powder charge inside the round had not been removed -- and the round was still...

<p>A man walked into a Midtown bank last week, gave his name and account number to the teller and showed his ID. It was his real name and it was his own account. The ID had his picture.</p> <p>Then he handed over a piece of paper -- a receipt -- with a note scribbled on the back.</p>

August, 2009 FOX has annouced that its popular show HOUSE will be canceled and will not have its 2009 season televised as planned. Due to Obamacare restrictions, delays, rationing and age-to-benefit studies, the show simply can't be done. Writers & producers have concluded that each episode would take 10-20 times longer while necessary medical tests, needed to move the plot/story line, have now become unavailable. Episodes dealing with elderly patients were scrapped as their stories constantly ended with either pain pill overdoses or euthanasia. Episodes involving unborn children with defects/complications were constantly ending with an abortions. There were also too...

A game of Monopoly has landed a Michigan man in jail. WDIV-TV reported a 54-year-old man was playing the board game Saturday night with a female friend when he tried to buy Park Place and Boardwalk from her.

(snip) "I think you could say that it is a short-term improvement in the economy. And I'll be glad to give him credit for that. But the question that I think we should be asking are the long term consequences of this unprecedented debts and deficits — are they beneficial to the country? And I think the answer is no." (snip)

(CNN) — Despite his campaign-trail promises, President Obama has failed to change the partisan tone in Washington, Arizona Sen. John McCain said Friday. "I'm afraid they have," Obama's former presidential rival told CNN's John King when asked if the administration has 'failed' in delivering on its repeated pledge of bipartisanship.

Andrea Mitchell: You're Too Stupid to Know Obamacare is Good for YouJuly 31, 2009 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This morning on MSNBC -- Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington -- was discussing the new MSNBC Wall Street Journal poll that's not good news for Obama on health care. MITCHELL: You've got 47% of the people at our NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll who have health insurance -- ANCHOR: Mmm-hmm! MITCHELL: -- who don't like what the president's doing. The problem he's got, 47% of the people who have got coverage don't want change. They don't like what they're hearing. Now, they may...

Crowley will address the press.

A 22-year-old Birmingham woman broke her leg after a train hit her this morning on the 2100 block of Morris Avenue, Birmingham police said. The woman told police she was laying on the tracks "to clear her mind" when the train approached around 7 a.m., Officer Lawrence Billups said. The CSX train was moving about 10 mph when it hit her, Billups said.

New York/Toronto, July 24 (DPA) For Canadian Barry Shell, the $4 million was worth a night in jail. Shell showed up at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp delighted to claim his win earlier this week, only to be pulled aside by detective Kevin Finley and informed he was under arrest. “I hate to wreck your happy dance,” Finley told Shell, according to the Toronto Star Thursday. Shell had several out-standing warrants from 2003 for theft of cameras, global positioning systems, memory cards and watches. His name came up in a routine check of lottery winners, according to the report....

Student of history, Barack Obama, fumbled another historic event today. Barack Obama explained to an ABC reporter why he does not like to use the word victory: "I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News. It wasn't Hirohito.

Washington -- A day after saying that police "acted stupidly" in arresting a black Harvard University professor in his own home, President Obama appeared to soften his stance Thursday, spreading the blame more equally between the police and the arrested man. Obama had previously implied during a news conference Wednesday that Henry Louis Gates Jr., his personal friend and one of the nation's preeminent African American scholars, had been a victim of racial profiling by the police. Obama also called the arresting officer in Cambridge, Mass., Sgt. James Crowley, an "outstanding police officer." The measured approach was in contrast to...

From the moment a police officer dons that uniform, he/she becomes a symbol of authority, and it becomes obvious very quickly that most people in a free country resent authority. It could be the guy who gets pulled over for speeding or passing a red light; it could be the guy who's clobbering his wife during a family dispute, or it could be a guy who breaking into a residence that turns out to be his. Although these are situations in which the police must take action, their authority will usually be resented. It's the type of job in which...

On Wednesday, South Carolina US Senator Lindsey Graham stated that he now intends to vote for anti-gun Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Graham is now the fifth sellout among the Republican Party to back Sotomayor. To make things worse, he is on the Judiciary Committee that will vote on the matter Tuesday.

From the Federal Business Opportunities website: The purpose of this announcement is to seek qualified contractors with the capability to provide presentations for The Department of Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD), Management Meeting with experience in meeting the objectives as described herein. The Contractor shall conduct two, 3-hour, Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life. Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the...

WASHINGTON — If the Senate doesn't pass a bill to cut global warming, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer says, there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more. She says there's a huge upside, however, if the Senate does act: millions of clean-energy jobs, reduced reliance on foreign oil and less pollution for the nation's children.

Link only due to copyright. Our Foreign Policy Expert Veep dictates policy to the Iraqis.

Michael Jackson accidentally killed himself while trying to become sick enough to cancel upcoming concerts, a prominent author claims. Author Gerald Posner, who also writes for The Daily Beast, claims that a top member of the pop singer’s entourage told him that Jackson wanted to cancel several shows without having to pay out his touring company.

SEMINOLE — Police nabbed a suspected bank robber after two different witnesses reported seeing him drunk and covered in red dye Thursday. Pinellas County sheriff's detectives say Michael Prance, 53 and homeless, robbed RBC Bank at 11201 Park Boulevard in Seminole that day and got away. Around 6 p.m. that day, a resident at the Caribbean Mobile Home Park in Seminole called police complaining of an intoxicated person at the pool. Witnesses told police he was stumbling around the pool with a bottle of wine and red dye on his clothes. After residents confronted him, he left. Then, deputies got...

June 18, 2009 — A picture of colorfully-plumed dinosaurs graces an article on National Geographic, but were feathers found with the fossil? No; the article said, “Primitive feathers may have covered the dinosaur’s body, but there is no direct evidence for that, noted [James] Clark, whose work was funded in part by the National Geographic Society” (which also owns National Geographic News). The feathers are apparently completely imaginary. National Geographic has been caught doing this before...

A Republican renewal could still be possible, according to Murphy, because "conservatism is traditionally energized by a reaction to liberal excess, and the unabashedly leftish tilt of the Obama administration's domestic agenda does give hope. But demography is a powerful force." Republicans need to become more socially libertarian on issues such as gay rights to appeal to young voters, and to support practical immigration reform to win more of the Latino vote, Murphy suggests, adding: "Saving the GOP is not about diluting conservatism but about modernizing it to reflect the country it inhabits instead of an America that no longer...

Much of the debate surrounding Sarah Palin’s feud with David Letterman this week has been based around questions over whether Palin overplayed her hand, or if it is wise for someone who wants to be president to be spending their time feuding with a late night host, but there is deeper motive at work here. Palin is trying to use Letterman to motivate the GOP base, and reignite the culture wars. Here was Palin’s response to Letterman’s apology for some jokes he told about her daughters this week, "Laughter incited by sexually perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity...

This is a rare footage of a redheaded woodpecker and it’s LOL laughter!

Since 2005, when it first began to crack down on the problem, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has paid out $75.8 million to fugitive felons receiving payments on behalf of other Social Security beneficiaries. According to a report issued by the SSA inspector general’s office, in one case alone, an individual with an outstanding warrant for burglary that has been pending since 1991 received $25,019 on behalf of a mentally-disabled beneficiary from 2005 to 2008. After the IG reported the case to SSA in June 2008, the fugitive felon was replaced with another more suitable "representative payee," the report said....

Draft. We couldn't wait to post this, so incensed were we at Obama's latest emissions of idiotic proportions. Being so incensed, we call it a "draft" because we know we'll want to polish it up upon calming down a bit. If we were Drudge, we'd have a siren graphic up. Being both world-class slick and incompetent beyond belief opens President Barack Obama up to no end of criticism. We like to think we are on the cutting edge of rendering that priceless public service, and in doing so, we have offered a number of lines that are studies in subtlety....

This week’s endorsement of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by senior Senate Republicans is being cheered by GOP senators as a move toward the middle. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) endorsed Crist over former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, a protégé of former Gov. Jeb Bush and a more conservative candidate. The decision by McConnell and Cornyn was the first such choice since last month’s defection of Arlen Specter to the Senate’s Democratic conference. Moderate GOP senators like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine used that opportunity to publicly warn the...

Believe it or not, there are a few things that were not addressed in our white paper on the President's first 100 days. In particular, we didn't even touch on the many things that the President and his Administration have done to just make us scratch our heads and wonder out loud how this country ever elected this buffoon. Some of these things don't really rise my blood temperature like the stimulus package or the Employee Free Choice Act, but they really raise a serious cause for concern that this guys really has no clue whatsoever. So here are the...

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.” SNIP - A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.” “It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by...

Sixteen years ago, Bill Clinton surged to an improbable presidential victory over incumbent George H.W. Bush, primarily on the strength of a snarky campaign phrase: "It's the economy, stupid." Now, Republicans appear to be crafting their own version in an effort to recapture both chambers in Congress next year. Their message: President Obama's fiscal policy "spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much."

Sen. John McCain's daughter continued her all-out media tour with a stop on CNN's "Larry King Live" Tuesday night, voicing support for her father's campaign opponent, President Obama, but none for her Republican critics. Meghan McCain, a columnist for TheDailyBeast.com, also tried to take the high road after conservative radio host Laura Ingraham had joked about the 24 year-old's weight last week. "As far as I'm concerned with what's going on with Laura Ingraham, on my end, it's over," McCain told King. "There are nine million women in this country suffering from eating disorders. And I'm not going to be...

Jennifer Stone-Anderson says her 2004 Saturn Ion became a work of art this fall when she covered it with elaborate paintings supporting Barack Obama. But Chrysler, which financed her car purchase, maintains that it's just a car. And that Stone-Anderson has been missing payments. And that her work of "art" is about to be repossessed. Read on

...when you can buy them at the auction, one by one: Romanian Babe Auctions Virginity . Read on

A robber gets more than he bargained for when he targets a Tae Kwon Do studio in suburban Milwaukee. The robber thought he could quietly slip in and out of David Kang's studio in Fox Point with some loot. What he didn't realize is that he would encounter a Tae Kwon Do master who wasn't about to let him off the hook.

Obama, Geithner Get Low Grades From Economists By PHIL IZZO U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. Charts and Full Results Their assessment stands in stark contrast with Mr. Obama's popularity with the public, with a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll giving him a 60% approval rating. But a majority of the 49 economists polled is dissatisfied with the administration's economic policies. On average, they gave the president a mark of 59 out of 100, and although there...

A woman was taken to hospital after accidentally setting herself on fire when she washed her hair in petrol. She told firefighters in Evansville, Indiana, that she had been trying to kill head lice when the petrol fumes were ignited by a water heater. She is expected to make a full recovery.

Nothing says summer in Iowa like a cloud of dust behind a combine. But what may be a fact of life for farmers is a cause for concern to federal regulators, who are refusing to exempt growers from new environmental regulations. It's left some farmers feeling bemused and more than a little frustrated. "It's such a non-commonsense idea that you can keep dust within a property line when the wind blows," said Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee who still farms in northeast Iowa.

ALBANY, GA (WALB) - An Albany motel owner was beaten and threatened by a man after refusing to hire him. Saturday afternoon Dollar Inn Owner Mukesh Patel told Police that a man named "A.K." came in and asked for a job. When Patel refused to hire him, he says the man hit him in the face twice and then threatened to kill him. Police are investigating but have made no arrests.

"The investigation revealed that the suspect had forced the woman into his vehicle in front of her San Jose residence -- then struck her repeatedly as he drove toward Southern California. When Quintero-Guzman stopped at the motel, the victim was able to use his cellphone to call for help."

How fitting is it that on the day Americans take time to reflect on the past presidents of the United States the City of Opa-Locka will honor our current leader. During a ceremony Monday a section of Perviz Avenue was renamed President Barack Obama Avenue making the city the first in the nation to name a street after the current president.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain says President Barack Obama failed to include Republicans in writing the big economic stimulus bill. The Arizona Republican says the $787 billion measure will create what he calls "generational theft" — huge federal deficits for years to come. McCain, who lost the presidential race to Obama, says the president is backtracking on promises of bipartisanship. McCain is not happy with the process that led to passage of the stimulus bill. He calls it a bad beginning to Obama's presidency. McCain acknowledges that Republicans excluded Democrats when the GOP held power on Capitol Hill. But...