Free Republic

An international lobby group for bankers is calling on the world's policymakers to put their taxpayers' funds to work to save the global financial system. In a policy letter sent Thursday from the Institute of International Finance Inc. to the finance ministers and central bank governors that are meeting in Washington D.C. next week at the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the group called for the passage of proposed U.S. bill to bailout troubled mortgage-backed securities. “Systemic, internationally co-ordinated responses by the authorities are essential at this stage to stabilize financial markets, requiring large if temporary use of government funds,”...

Talk about lipstick on a pig: the bailout measure, which began as a modest, $700-billion, three-page oink, reached the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday wearing about 450 pages of lipstick. Its maximum final cost was no longer calculable -- after bipartisan negotiations to add "sweeteners" to the thing, to buy it support from various congressional factions. Americans, and anyone else who happened to be watching (most of the world), got a good taste of what "Congressional oversight" means; to say nothing of the explanation of why, in opinion polls, the U.S. Congress enjoys even less popular esteem than President Bush....

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Friday signed a mammoth economic rescue package aimed at saving troubled US banks and easing a credit crunch that he warned could spell disaster for the US public. After campaigning for the bailout for two weeks and courting reluctant lawmakers in person and by telephone, Bush signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 before leaving Washington for the weekend.

I was listening to a business/news show this morning on which discussions occurred regarding the 'mis-marketing' by Paulson and the politicians of the 'bailout' plan. According to these talking heads, this should never have been labeled a 'bailout' plan because we, the public, "took it to be something it isn't". After finishing rolling my eyes, I got to thinking about what this "plan" should actually have been called. See if you creative folks can think of other appropriate names for this "plan". A couple of my jr-high humor ideas below ---

Sen. Biden’s VAWA Cover-Up 2008-08-25 at 2:30 pm · Amidst the hoopla surrounding Sen. Joseph Biden’s ascendancy to the right hand of Barack Obama, something was curiously missing. Over the last 15 years, Biden has repeatedly bragged to his friends and colleagues, “What I’m most proud of in my entire career is the Violence Against Women Act.” So why no mention of his legislative pride-and-joy amidst the flurry of text messages, press releases, and staged public appearances? The answer is, VAWA has become something of an embarrassment to the good senator. The Violence Against Women Act and related laws extract...

San Francisco calls the Catholic Church's teachings hateful, defamatory and insensitive.The liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether a scathing anti-Catholic resolution from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is unconstitutional. The resolution, passed unanimously in 2006, accused the Vatican of operating as a "foreign country" and called the Church's teachings "hateful," "defamatory," "insensitive," "ignorant" and "insulting to all San Franciscans." It was issued in response to the Church's requirement that adoptive children be brought up by families with a mom and dad. "They’re condemning the Catholic Church as 'hateful' and 'harmful,' and that is clearly a...

HARTFORD -- Using a unique state law, police in Connecticut have disarmed dozens of gun owners based on suspicions that they might harm themselves or others. The state's gun seizure law is considered the first and only law in the country that allows the confiscation of a gun before the owner commits an act of violence. Police and state prosecutors can obtain seizure warrants based on concerns about someone's intentions. State police and 53 police departments have seized more than 1,700 guns since the law took effect in October 1999, according to a new report to the legislature. There are...

After two decades of unconscionable increases in tuition and fees, colleges and universities increasingly are employing a new scam to swindle students and their parents out of whatever pennies they have left: the custom textbook. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, publishers make a few minor tweaks to a standard textbook, jack up the price and sell the special edition to the captive thousands who are required to buy it for required courses. For example, the University of Alabama requires all 4,000 of its freshmen to pay $59.35 for a spiral-bound special edition of "A Writer's Reference." The university's...

The Washington D.C. City Council has created so many hoops for handgun owners to jump through before they can exercise their Second Amendment rights, they may require legal counsel just to identify what the hoops are.  This sorry state of affairs is much to the satisfaction of The Washington Post, which called for just such an obstructionist policy in an editorial.  At least one of those hoops is illegal, according to the Supreme Court, but a Post news story spun that fact as the opinion of “opponents of the handgun ban.”  Is editorial policy coloring the news?The Washington Post is...

New York tax filers reporting more than $375,000 a year in earned income may end up paying nearly 60% of their wages in taxes to the government under a Barack Obama presidency, economists who have analyzed his plan said. The Democratic presidential candidate is proposing not only raising the federal income tax, but also adding a Social Security tax for those Americans earning more than $250,000 a year. For New Yorkers, that could mean that if the current Social Security rate is applied, the marginal tax rate, or rate on every extra dollar earned, could rise to 58%. "This is...

In the latest effort to deconstruct and destroy the United States, the Supreme Court has decided that a foreign terrorist captured on foreign territory trying to kill Americans has just as many constitutional rights as a Wal-Mart shoplifter. The liberals think this is a good thing. That's because they're America-hating idiots. Sorry, Obama, but if the shoe fits, cram it up your backside. In the liberal world view, where the war against terror is no larger than Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the United States military is a collection of war criminals and puppy killers. Guantanamo Bay – where jihadist murderers...

U.S. troops serving in Iraq may be getting more letters during mail call, but they won't be care packages — one group is sending them letters and DVDs claiming 9/11 was an “inside job” and that they should rethink why they’re fighting. Mark Dice, founder of The Resistance, which he calls a media watchdog group, says that the U.S. government was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the armed forces should know it. “People want the facts. The Marines are hungry for the truth — what got them there [in Iraq], why are they risking their lives...

Boasting of his participation in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre, in which seven Black men were murdered by a mob of white southerners, Benjamin Tillman pursued dominance in South Carolina's political arena. Serving as governor in 1890 he bemoaned the fact that Blacks still resided in South Carolina. "...we have scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it." So naturally when he ran for the US Senate he felt most comfortable in the Democrat Party and became the "noble" pioneer of...

A driver nailed by a roving radar truck in San Jose is taking his case to court in hopes of getting back the money he spent on speeding tickets and increases in insurance costs for himself and others mailed fines by the city. The city killed the program that put white radar photo vans on the streets to cut down on speeding after questions were raised in 2006 about the legality of having city engineers - not cops - write citations. But that was after officials had issued about $5 million worth of tickets through the decade-old program. In 2006...

In a state that has seen its share of electoral problems this decade, Florida’s senior Sen. Bill Nelson made a rare appearance before the state Senate Thursday to unveil sweeping federal election reform legislation that would eliminate the Electoral College. As the state now wrestles with the national Democratic Party to find a solution to seat its 210 delegates at this year’s presidential nominating convention, Nelson noted that “the solution is very elusive,” but that, “If nothing else, this election has provided further evidence that our system is broken.” The Democratic senator, who sued the Democratic National Committee and Chairman...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and...

This redirects the attack on the Electoral College by avoiding the amendment process to the US Constitution.   The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among U.S. states that would effectively end the electoral college system of presidential elections and replace it with a direct nationwide vote of the people. As of February 2008, this interstate compact has been joined by Maryland and New Jersey; their 25 electoral votes amount to 9.3% of the 270 needed for it to take effect. The compact is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state the...

Somebody sent me an email mentioning the ATF ordering Leatherman tools engraved with "Always Think Forfeiture". I followed the link to the original message thread at www.subguns.com.The thread includes a link to the Federal Business Opportunities website, where you can read the bid for yourself.From the www.fbo.gov website:The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms requires the following items, Purchase Description Determined by Line Item, to the following: LI 001, EXACT MATCH ONLY - Leatherman Micra Color: Blue - Part number 64340101K Engraved with: ATF-Asset Forfeiture AND "always think forfeiture" PLEASE REFER TO THE ATTACHMENT. NOTE: ATF MAY REQUEST A SAMPLE...

18 Mar 2008 12:24 pm CBS News is reporting that eight years worth of Hillary Clinton's schedule as First Lady will be released tomorrow by the National Archives.

Bill Clinton: "If You Elect Me" (I'm Speaking as Her)Jake Tapper, ABC Blog.com For a natural-born politician such as former President Bill Clinton, it may be tough to spend so much time talking about someone else. In Portsmouth, Ohio, he said, " If you elect me, I'll repeal those subsidies. And put them into a strategic energy fund that will create American jobs for America's future with clean energy." Watch Video HERE. If you coughed and missed the "Hillary says" in that sentence you might be surprised when he reaches the "if you elect me" part of the pitch more than 60 words later....

This is pretty darn funny!

BRADENTON In Florida, the law on red light cameras puts cities and police departments in an odd position. They can install the cameras, photograph cars that go through a red light and send the driver a warning. What the law does not allow, however, is sending the driver a traffic ticket. But some cities and counties have found a way around that. Across Florida, local officials are using the cameras and a loophole in the law to issue "civil violations" instead of moving violations to fine drivers for running red lights. It is the same method governments use to go...

BALTIMORE (AP) -- In a new tactic against urban crime, the mayors of several East Coast cities, including New York, plan to launch a database that will allow them to share information on known gun offenders. The database, expected to be operational later this year, will pool data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with information collected by local agencies, including ballistics information and intelligence gathered from debriefings of gun offenders. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and other urban leaders said Wednesday that the first-of-its-kind database will make it more difficult for...

Boulder's elected leaders are expected to decide next week whether to draft and vote on a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. For the past few weeks, activists have been showing up at Boulder City Council meetings, carrying signs, handing out "impeach" pins and asking City Council members to take up such a resolution. Similar measures have passed in cities across the country, including Detroit and Telluride.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Couples exchanged rings, toasted each other and broke into cheers Monday as other same-sex pairs emerged from the red brick Multnomah County Building waving certificates declaring them newly registered domestic partners. It was the first day of registration in Oregon after U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman lifted a temporary injunction imposed pending resolution of an argument over petition signatures.(snip) Couples who pay the $60 registration fee can now file joint state tax returns, inherit each other's property and make medical choices on each other's behalf, among other benefits married Oregonians have.(snip) "My 8-month-old daughter is...

Democrats don’t like Hillary!!! Here is a very interesting article on the Iowa caucuses. Before I tell you what is most interesting let me repeat myself: Iowa is not America and the Iowa caucuses are waaayyyy over-blown. However, there is something to be learned from even this unrepresentative gathering. And the lesson is this: Hillary is not the choice of a majority of Democrats. More importantly, she is not the second choice of those who don’t place her number one. That is the reason she lost in Iowa. Here are the relevant statistics for one caucus site:

VINTON, Iowa - Ever since Barack Obama suggested Hillary Clinton's eight years as first lady were a glorified tea party a few days back, she's looked for an opening to strike back. On Saturday night in Dubuque she pounced, arguing she risked her life on White House missions in the 1990s, including a hair-raising flight into Bosnia that ended in a "corkscrew" landing and a sprint off the tarmac to dodge snipers. "I don't remember anyone offering me tea," she quipped. The dictum around the Oval Office in the '90s, she added, was: "If a place was too dangerous, too...

LIMA — Two robbers who broke into Luther Ricks Sr.’s house this summer may have not gotten his life savings he had in a safe, but after the FBI confiscated it he may not get it back. Ricks has tried to get an attorney to fight for the $402,767 but he has no money. Lima Police Department officers originally took the money from his house but the FBI stepped in and took it from the Police Department. Ricks has not been charged with a crime and was cleared in a fatal shooting of one of the robbers but still the...

If Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman president, she’ll accomplish another “first” that supporters are less eager to acknowledge: She’ll be the first candidate to win with the support of many who are really more interested in the candidate’s spouse. “The underlying reason is a yearning for a Bill Clinton third term,” one South Florida Democratic official who supports Clinton said privately. “The feeling is that he is a power behind the throne.”

For the first time in history, a former president has a good shot at getting back into the White House … as a spouse. And that's just one reason why Bill Clinton is one of Barbara Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People of 2007." If his wife wins the 2008 presidential election, would the former president sit in on cabinet meetings? "Only if asked," Clinton told Walters. "And I think it would only be wise if it were on a specific issue. I think it's better for me to give her my advice privately most of the time." Clinton says he...

Mrs Hillary Clinton, Senator from New York State, is one of the leading contenders for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the USA in 2008. But a question arises, as she is the wife of a former two-term President, whether her candidacy is legally allowed under the US Constitution and American law. America’s first President, George Washington, held office for two consecutive four-year terms and declined to run for a third term in 1796. From that time onwards to Franklin D. Roosevelt, it became a constitutional custom in the USA that no President would serve for more than two...

I heard on the news this morning on WMAL in Washington that Hillary has NOT ruled out putting her impeached husband on the ballot as her VP. Is this legal?? The Constitution says candidates for VP MUST be eligible to be President. Bubba is not eligible since he has served his two terms.

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms. more stories like this Witness intimidation ruling upheld Trooper says police halted his gigs as DJ Police chief pledges probe 26 arrested after Red Sox win pennant Fans celebrate Sox' World Series berth The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it...

As social conservatives decide who to support in the 2008 primary, let me suggest that an application of the immortal pass/fail test of the 1980 Reagan-Carter debate is particularly apropos for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Applying that test to Romney on the two signal issues for social conservatives, and two of the centerpieces of Romney's campaign, Right to Life and Traditional Marriage, what does the record reflect? On Abortion: When Romney took office in 2003, under the law in Massachusetts, enacted by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Moe v....

House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion bill for the Iraq war Wednesday night that would require President Bush to start bringing troops home in coming weeks with a goal of ending combat by December 2008. The legislation, passed 218-203, was largely a symbolic jab at Bush, who already has begun reducing force levels but opposes a congressionally mandated timetable on the war. And while the measure was unlikely to pass in the Senate — let alone overcome a presidential veto — Democrats said they wanted voters to know they weren't giving up. "The fact is, we can no longer...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits. The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974. Representatives Edward I. Koch and Bella Abzug of New York then sought to protect gay men and lesbians with a measure they introduced on the fifth anniversary of...

The Senate this week will debate a $238 billion farm bill, and there was the prospect that yet another amnesty for illegal aliens, this one for farm workers and their families, would be attached to it. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) was considering introducing the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2007 (AgJOBS) as an amendment to the bill (it was also one section of last summer’s failed amnesty proposal). The bill would put on a path to citizenship, 2 to 3 million farm workers and their families, though only after a three- to five-year period of indenture...

Republican loathing for Hillary Clinton used to be viewed as her Achilles' heel. But Tuesday night in Philadelphia, she wore Republican hate as a badge of honor, fending off her Democratic rivals' sharpest attacks yet by casting herself as a kind of partisan warrior queen. Barack Obama, pressed for weeks by his donors and by the media to take on Clinton more directly, came out swinging against her, moving from uncertainty to a more confident criticism. She parried an early blow from him, an accusation that she is too close to President Bush and his party on Iran. "I don’t...

What Ramadan Is Really About: Atonement and Renewal By M. Zuhdi Jasser In honor of our Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Muslim lunar calendar, the U.S. Congress passed H.R. 635 on October 2, 2007. The bill was introduced by Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and co-sponsored by thirty other House Democrats including Keith Ellison, Gregory Meeks and Dennis Kucinich. The legislation passed unanimously with a vote of 376-0. The legislation was met with effusive congratulatory remarks from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council), and the State Department. CAIR has been working on...

Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd and clever, as opposed to open and strong. I mean the look he gets in an interview or conversation when he's listening and not conscious of his expression. It's a very present look. He seems more in the moment than handling the moment. I've noticed this the past few months, since he entered the national...

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., was among 41 senators who signed a letter condemning radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, and Salazar said Wednesday he would vote for a resolution censuring Limbaugh for “going beyond whatever rights he had to attack soldiers.”

At two-and-a-half years old, Evan is a special little boy who sings himself to sleep with "Jesus loves me." Declining all testing for which there was not a positive health intervention, Chris and Julie Messina welcomed their first child. "Joyful," "friendly" and "loving" are just some of the attributes that make Evan unique. He also has an extra (third) copy of the 21st chromosome, a condition known as Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome. Over ninety percent of parents abort their children after receiving a pre-natal diagnosis of Trisomy 21.1 In an effort to remedy this, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed...

HATE CRIMES BILL The Senate voted to attach hate crimes legislation to the pending defense authorization bill. Legislation to help states prosecute attacks on homosexuals will now be voted on in conjunction with funding the war in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092700126.html?hpid=moreheadlines Opponents say that it will ultimately fail, as Bush threatens to veto. Republicans say that the matter of hate crimes legislation should be left to the states. The better response is that hate crimes legislations not only criminalizes thought, it also sets up different classes of victims. Example: Some people say I look a bit like Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Not...

HILLARYCARE REVEALED Hillary Rodham, almost certain to be the nominee of the Democrat MoveOn Party, finally unveiled her government-run healthcare plan yesterday. http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2007/09/17/clinton_calls_for_universal_health_care?page=1 For comic relief Ms. Rodham told the assembled crowd that this health care plan would not be "government run." It's pretty much what everyone anticipated. In essence ... everyone will be required to purchase a health insurance policy, either on their own or through their employer. And just who is going to require the purchase of these policies? Your local sheriff? Well, not exactly. The Imperial Federal Government will do the requiring here, and, one must assume,...

Under our legislation, the District would get a House vote for the first time in 206 years, and Utah would get the seat it was denied because of counting irregularities in the 2000 Census. We are proud that ours is a bipartisan bill, which passed the House in April and now has clear majority support from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. In spite of this Senate majority, we are now seeking 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. Filibusters of equal-rights bills have long been discredited by history. Democrats were wrong to filibuster voting rights bills in the 1960s, and...

Back on July 29th, the New York Times published an article that was ostensibly supposed to be a book review even as the first half of the long piece was an anti-Bush, ant-war-on-terror political rant. The byline was credited to Samantha Powers, who, as the Times somewhat benignly defined her, is a "professor of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard." But, Power is far from a mere lefty Harvard professor because in the past she was a duly paid member of Senator Obama's staff and is still a key foreign policy adviser to this day for his campaign for...

WASHINGTON - The House on Wednesday approved a move by conservative Republicans to try to set free two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer. After a long, emotional debate, the House voted by voice to block the Bureau of Prisons from keeping former agents Ignacio Ramos and Alonso Compean in federal prison. Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year federal prison sentences, respectively, for the 2005 shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila on the Texas border near El Paso. The case has caused a furor among conservative lawmakers and on talk radio across the country. The...

A British teenager whose teachers had stopped her wearing a "purity ring" at school to symbolise her commitment to virginity lost a High Court fight against the ban on Monday. Lydia Playfoot, 16, says her silver ring is an expression of her faith and had argued in court that it should be exempt from school regulations banning the wearing of jewellery. "I am very disappointed by the decision this morning by the High Court not to allow me to wear my purity ring to school as an expression of my Christian faith not to have sex outside marriage," Playfoot said...

"Democratic Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton place an order at Whitey's Ice Cream during a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, July 3, 2007."Later...