Free Republic

http://www.webcenter11.com/default.aspx The poll can be found about 2/3 of the way down the page on the left hand side. Do you think Sarah Palin is being unfairly accused of inciting the Arizona shooting? Yes (22.9%) No (76.6%) No opinion (0.5%)

I believe the term is "schadenfreude." The word comes from the German; it means "enjoyment derived from the troubles of others," according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary's Web site. I found myself coming down with a case of schadenfreude when I learned that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay. Olbermann's infraction was donating money to Democratic candidates. MSNBC went into what I call "National Public Radio mode," issuing some self-righteous statement about Olbermann violating journalistic ethics and the network's policies that forbid personnel from donating to political campaigns.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin doesn't expect to start searching for a successor to U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd until after the longest-serving senator in history is laid to rest next week. Manchin says he's instead focused on comforting Byrd's family and staff, and preparing the West Virginia memorial scheduled for Friday for the iconic figure who died Monday at 92 after years of frail health.

The parents of imprisoned Army Lt. Michael Behenna of Edmond have responded to the action of the congressional delegation in seeking clemency for their son, convicted of killing an al Qaida operative in Iraq. The trial ended with the revelation that military prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to Behenna in violation of civil and military law and the appeals process is ongoing. Members of the delegation seek an immediate reduction in Behenna's 20-year sentence, and, ultimately, a new trial. Vicki and Scott Behenna said, "Michael and our family are deeply grateful for this show of force by the entire Oklahoma congressional...

Sarah Palin's rambling abdication speech was hard to follow, let alone acclaim, but in her abrupt announcement that she is withdrawing from public office, the Republican governor of Alaska was hardly the only player in a 10-month drama who demonstrated a lack of self-awareness. Democrats scoffed at her "politics of personal destruction" line, but it's a maxim they originally popularized, and one they will undoubtedly trot out again the next time it happens to one of their own. But the true villains in this political morality play may have been the press. The mainstream media is undergoing its demise, drip...

Fairness or Prudence? The pugnacious little devil that he was, Theodore Roosevelt, in 1912, ran against his own handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, split the Republican vote, and handed the presidency to Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, formerly President of Princeton University, is the only man ever elected United States President to have possessed a PHD. Much more subdued in personality than Roosevelt, but no less rigid, his unwillingness to placate the Republican coalition, and specifically Henry Cabot Lodge, the United States of America never became member of the League of Nations, Wilson’s own brainchild conceived to protect the world from war....

Look at my fellow conservatives…… silver lining in …… Barak Obama…. Presidency : The Era of White Guilt is over. …..white Americans didn’t [care] about skin color. [Voted] for.. black man. Therefore, as of Nov 4th, 2008, white guilt is dead. ….if a black man can become President, exactly what significant barrier is left?... The dragon is hereby slain. … today, I’m feeling a little “uppity,” if you will. From this day forward, my tolerance level for having my skin color hustled is now exactly ZERO. … time to clean house. No more Reverend Wright’s “God Damn America,” Al Sharpton’s...

Barack Obama reminds me a bit of John Gotti. Obama is no murderer, of course, but here is the analogy: John Gotti (before his incarceration) was a well-dressed, genial, smooth-talking guy. Not a visible threat in sight. But if you crossed him, his thugs were very quickly at your door. Likewise with Barack Obama. He is always at pains to seem high-minded, but his tactics are anything but. If you cross him, his goons, too, are sure to retaliate, albeit in less deadly fashion than Gotti's. The case of Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is an object lesson in how Obama...

Obama remains unknown Tony Blankley Wednesday, September 24, 2008 The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08 for the first time, the major media are consciously covering for one candidate for president and consciously knifing the other. This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican growers on Wednesday called a U.S. warning against certain types of their tomatoes unjust, saying it has brought exports to a halt and could cripple Mexico's $900 million industry. Growers said their produce is subject to double the scrutiny that U.S. tomatoes face: inspected first by Mexican officials and then again at the border when crossing into the U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still hunting for the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to three types of raw tomatoes that has sickened 167 people in 17 U.S. states since mid-April. It has...

Mike Huckabee’s radical plan for sales tax revenue system only looks seductive, argues Tim Worstall, who demonstrates how the Fair Tax can be easily gamed and how the end of the I.R.S. is really the beginning of an even greater bureaucracy of retail auditors. by Tim Worstall As a Brit, I’ve been watching the back and forth about Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s Fair Tax with amazement. The idea is that the entire current Federal tax system is abolished replaced it with a 23% sales tax upon everything, this meaning we don’t the IRS and individual tax returns. The money...

The details of Sen. Larry Craig's arrest in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom shocked his colleagues and constituents, but he was not the only person ensnarled in the airport police action against suspected lewd conduct in the restroom. Thirty-nine other men were arrested at the airport in a three-month period this summer. A review of their cases and interviews with four lawyers representing many of the suspects show how Craig - who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but now says he is not guilty - fits into the larger picture of the sting operation and sheds light on his...

Just Breaking

Coca-Cola has kept the promises it made to boost diversity after a 1999 race discrimination lawsuit, a task force concluded Friday in its final report on the lawsuit settlement. Coke's chief executive said that, even with the case now closed, the beverage giant will keep working toward "color blindness." The task force monitoring Coke's diversity programs issued the last of five reports to a federal court judge overseeing a settlement the company reached six years ago with minority employees who accused the company of discrimination. Coke agreed to a $192.5 million class action settlement before the case ever went to...

We know that we are being lied to. Sometimes we just don't realize how much we are being lied to. The more sordid the Islamic present seems, the more we are told of the glories of the Islamic past. And the most glorious of the glories of Islam, the most enlightened of its enlightenments, are the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" of the Golden Age. So what does Islamic law say about this science and this philosophy? According to Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 1368), they are unlawful,...

Hamza wins go-ahead to appeal over 'unfair' trial By Duncan Gardham (Filed: 29/07/2006) The radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza was given leave to appeal yesterday against his conviction for soliciting to murder on the grounds of the bad publicity he had received before and during the trial. Hamza's lawyers claimed he was unable to get a fair trial because he had become the most notorious person in Britain after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and July 7, 2005. Abu Hamza: ‘adverse publicity’ Edward Fitzgerald, QC, said putting Hamza on trial six years after the last of the speeches was...

WASHINGTON--An estimated 4 million subscribers to Internet phone services like Vonage could see new fees on their bills under a plan approved Wednesday by federal regulators. The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously at its monthly meeting here to require all voice over Internet Protocol services that connect to the public-switched telephone network--as opposed to using peer-to-peer technology, like Skype--to contribute to the Universal Service Fund. The $7.3 billion fund, which has been a feature of U.S. policy for more than 70 years, subsidizes telephone service in rural and low-income areas. It also runs a controversy-plagued program called E-Rate that provides...

WASHINGTON - Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she had been "more than fair" with embattled Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), rejecting claims to the contrary by black lawmakers and predicting the party rank and file would vote to strip him of his committee seat. "Mr. Jefferson will be dealt with," she said of the Louisiana lawmaker, ensnared in a federal corruption investigation. Democrats met in early evening to consider his fate, at a time they are attempting to make alleged Republican corruption a central theme in their campaign for control of the House. Jefferson spoke at the...

Rep. Jim Marshall votes lockstep with liberals on the Death Tax(Warner Robins, GA) Congressman Mac Collins (Ret. R-GA) has reiterated his call for the permanent repeal of the Death Tax. Collins voted for the repeal of this oppressive tax multiple times during his 12 years as a member of the United States House of Representatives. Collins opponent Democrat Jim Marshall, who has voted three times against repealing the Death Tax, has demonstrated his true partisan nature by voting with the Democrats in Congress rather then the people he represents. Marshall voted in lockstep with his party leader Nancy Pelosi on...

Women with boob jobs may be banned from Virgin's space flights. Bosses fear the implants may expand and burst due to cabin pressure, according to The Sun. More than 157 people have paid £115,000 each to travel into space on the Virgin Galactic space "shuttle". Spokesman Will Whitehorn said: "We've discovered there may well be issues with breast augmentation. "We're not sure whether they could stand the trip - they could well explode." People with heart or circulation problems may also be ruled out. The first trips are due in early 2008 and will have room for only seven...