Free Republic

There seemed to be enough lawmakers on the Sunday news shows the day after a major health care reform vote to make up a quorum, but the one clear message that emerged was the long and difficult road the legislation has to go in the Senate . While New York Sen. Charles Schumer said on CBS Face the Nation that "now, the wind is at our back," Democrats wrestled with questions about how to keep aboard some in the party who were willing to vote to get debate started on the Senate floor, but still harbored serious reservations about provisions...

WASHINGTON – If you stacked the pink slips Congress has received warning members away from support of the health-care bill, big spending, hate crimes legislation and energy taxes, the pile would tower over the tallest buildings in the world. Laying them end to end would result in a trail that would extend over nearly two-thirds of the American continent from East to West.

In case you hadn’t heard, the US Marxist Party’s Senate vote to ostensibly “continue debate” on its draconian version of “we will now control everything you say and do” ObamaCare proposed bill passed by 60-39—along straight party lines. The last minute purchase of corrupt Marxist-Democrat Senator votes (with OUR tax money) at over $100Millions a pop clenched the deal. The ObamaGov is placing the final nails in the coffin of our Republic and is replacing it with its onerous and totalitarian Marxist presence.

Five men facing trial in the 9/11 attacks will plead not guilty so they can voice their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, a lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday. Scott Fenstermaker, a lawyer representing accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks, but "would explain what happened and why they did it." Ali and four other men face a civilian trial just a few blocks from the World Trade Center site in the coming weeks. The men are accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist...

[snip] The Republican V.P. nom would be "gang-raped by my big black brothers" if she enters Manhattan, Bernhard said. [snip] Damon called her candidacy "a really scary thing," telling CBS News, "I think the pick was made for political purposes, but in terms of governance it's a disaster."

Why Is No One Laughing? By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. WASHINGTON -- What would the mainstream media's response be if former governor Sarah Palin described China's economic growth to an audience of students in Shanghai as "an accomplishment unparalleled in human history"? That is what the most inexperienced president in modern American history said in Shanghai this week. I wonder if any of the assembled journalists choked. President Barack Obama makes such unhinged pronouncements with the kind of frequency that if he were anyone else he would be set down by the media as a boobie. I take that back....

Palin scheduled to be at Ft. Bragg for a book signing stops in Asheville today to meet with the Reverend Billy Graham....., (Video of Sarah's (small) plane arriving at the airport and meeting with Franklin Graham) (Photos Added)

If the entertainment industry were allowed to pick California's next governor, there would be no contest: Jerry Brown would win by a landslide. That was made clear this past week as the 71-year-old attorney general was feted by industry leaders at an event raising more than $1 million and co-chaired by directors Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, and other movers and shakers. It's also been clear for months as studio executives, writers and other Hollywood figures have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the as-yet-undeclared Democratic candidate's campaign. Meanwhile, industry figures contributed much less money, if anything, to Republican...

"You can't vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man." So pronounced the Rev. Jesse Jackson the other night at an event held by the Congressional Black Caucus, also known as the CBC, in honor of the 25th anniversary of Jackson's 1984 Presidential campaign. You might not have heard about Jackson's remark. It received some notice, but nowhere near the overwhelming coverage that Jackson's blue comments last year towards Barack Obama or even his tasteless comment that New York City's Jewish voters made the city "Hymietown." Jackson criticizing an African-American presidential candidate or offering bizarre anti-Semitic remarks are certainly...

The Republican party wonders why conservatives are so disappointed with it?Another glowing example of the problems confronting the Republican party occurred yesterday.  The Senate Republicans had the opportunity to force a full reading of the Senate's proposed health care bill so that every bit of the 2,200 pages would be made public by the reading, and so the people could become much better informed about its contents before it is passed...if it is passed.  It had the opportunity to really hold the Democrats' feet to the fire over this abominable excuse for legislation that is being crammed down the throats...

This is the position of the New York Times when given the chance to publish sensitive information that might hinder the liberal agenda. Of course, when the choice is between publishing classified information that might endanger the lives of U.S. troops in the field or intelligence programs vital to national security, that information is published without hesitation by the nation's paper of record.

A place to discuss Bill's radio program. Click here for available internet streams.

Hackers Expose Climate Brawl Monday Nov 23, 2009 Caroline Overington writes up the story of the hackers breaking in to the East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU), but misses the meat of the story. The Australian can tick that box: “Covered”, but not tick that box, “Incisive”.She includes a few of the emails, but misses the bombshells while wasting column space discussing irrelevancies. As the Australian Senators sit down to assess the meaningfulness of an Emissions Trading Scheme this week, we can only hope they have better sources of information than our national masthead.The extraordinary emails from the East Anglia...

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said she’ll vote to move ahead with the Senate health bill, but has three conditions before she agrees to vote yes on the final bill. Those conditions are important, because Ms. Landrieu is one of the Democratic swing votes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) needs to win final passage. Here they are: 1) More tax credits for small business to buy health insurance. The issue is a consistent theme for Ms. Landrieu, who is chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee. The bill already includes some credits at a cost of $27 billion...

In Indiana, practice for 'civilian surge' in Afghanistan State Dept. enlists Afghans to help prepare Americans for mission CAMP ATTERBURY, IND. -- Outside a scruffy, two-story building, armed and flak-jacketed U.S. soldiers stood watch under a sagging Afghan flag. Inside, the provincial governor, a Hamid Karzai look-alike in a striped robe and Karakul cap, pleaded with two tribal elders to get along. Only the Taliban would benefit from their dispute, the governor's aide said with a nervous click of his worry beads. An American at the table asked to speak. If they couldn't settle their differences over landownership, he gently...

According to a report in The Consumerist, Apple is telling some customers that smoking near a product covered under the AppleCare program voids the warranty. However, try to find that limitation in the policy wording. It doesn’t seem to be in there. Two different readers of Consumerist reported that Apple had said that second hand smoke traces in the returned equipment voided the warranty because it exposed workers to secondhand smoke, and that nicotine was on OSHA’s list of hazardous substances.

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - November 22, 2009 -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the small amount of radiation detected at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is not significant.

I am among the thousands of women every year who discover between the ages of 40 and 49 that we have breast cancer. We find out after we undergo mammograms. We find out after we examine ourselves for lumps that may signal the presence of a malignancy. And we are the women who would go without both of these routine screenings under the task force's proposed guidelines. And every day that passed without treatment would have brought me that much closer to death. As it is, I have survived only through aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, along with a double mastectomy....

The independence of the Federal Reserve is essential for credible monetary policy and doubts about the U.S. central bank's ability to do its job without political interference could hurt the nascent economic recovery, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday. "Talk of eroding the Fed's independence can be counterproductive for economic recovery," St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said in slides to accompany a presentation prepared for a panel discussion in New York. Bullard said that non-independent central banks have historically been forced to finance large government budget deficits. "This can be very inflationary," he added. Last...

For those of us “skeptics” and “deniers” who have been jumping up and down, pointing at the Sun, and saying, “See, it’s the Sun that determines how warm or cool the Earth is. See it? Up there in the sky?” The truth about some of the scientists behind the global warming hoax has finally arrived. The hoax has its roots in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an instrument of the United Nations Environmental Program, for whom global warming was the open sesame to achieving a one-world-government by scaring nations into signing a treaty that would control their use...

It’s not every day you see a politician extend a rhetorical middle finger to his constituents, so enjoy this. It’s no mere hypothetical, either. His numbers in Colorado have been weak for months; meanwhile, The One’s approval rating there slipped below 50 percent as far back as April. Bennet’s facing a tough primary challenge, where he’ll be hammered if he votes no, and then what’ll no doubt be a tough general election, where he’ll be hammered if he votes yes. He might as well vote his conscience and prepare for the firing squad. Besides, Democrats aren’t really concerned with voters...

Good evening.This weekend, the Senate voted to go ahead on debate of the Reid Health Care Scam, Rs and Dems split completely along party lines.There's still life in the patient, but not much, for no matter how much the Senate alters the bill, it'll still be horrific and I'm not optimistic that it can be stopped.Still, life goes on & there is much sweetness and delight in our everyday activities and loves.

The leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit indicate an astonishing conspiracy of the world’s leading warmist scientists, involving collusion, rigged evidence, suppression of dissent, the possibly illegal destruction of evidence under FOI request, and the smearing of sceptical scientists. now there’s also an Australian link which shows just how closely activists and these scientists, as well as possibly the CSIRO, worked together to present the most alarmist scenarios. In private, the consensus within this “team” of warmist scientists seemed to be tearing apart as the world refused to warm. Money, money, money. Global warming is...

One YouTuber response reads: "This is about a transfer of wealth and power. Watch it all in the Documentary - Fall of the Republic - You think 0bama is the man sticking up for the little guy when really he is just the puppet standing in front of a special interest group of fat white guys. (Rich Bankers) Wake up son you have been sold out. We have been sold out by both parties. We have been lied to."

Visitors to America might have noticed the television ads urging us to buy gold. One such “spokesman”, formerly in charge of managing the government’s hoard of the yellow stuff, including the ingots buried at Fort Knox, points out that the value of gold has never fallen to zero. Why investors are expected to find such a modest claim reassuring I can’t imagine. But something is persuading people to buy gold, driving the price to and past $1,100 per ounce, from about $270 at the beginning of this decade, and around $700 when the financial crisis first hit.

You Tube:Funeral Service:The Late, Great Ronald W Reagan RIP Battle Hymn of the Republic Chorus

Looks like it's up $$ 11.60 right now. I was thinking there were some contracts expiring today or something like that.

Yes, "WE NOTICED" President Obama: Today I read of your administrations' plan to re-define September 11 as a National Service Day. Sir, it's time we had a talk......... During your campaign, Americans watched as you made mockery of our tradition of standing and crossing your heart when the Pledge of Al legiance was spoken. You, out of four people on the stage, were the only one not honoring our tradition. YES, "We noticed." During one of your many speeches, Americans heard you say that you intended to visit all 57 states. We all know that Islam, not America has 57...

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Wednesday called US President Barack Obama's strong criticism of the building of additional Jewish homes in a Jewish neighborhood of the Israeli capital a position based on racism. Said Barkat: "Israeli law does not discriminate between Jews, Muslims, and Christians or between eastern and western Jerusalem. The demand to halt construction by religion is not legal in the United States or in any other free place in the world. I do not presume that any government would demand to freeze construction in the United States based on race, religion or gender and the attempt to...

The color test is simple. There are 8 screens, and each screen you are given a word and two buttons to choose from.

Saturday Night Live, the comedy show that famously mocked Sarah Palin last year (ala Tina Fey) turned the tables last night on President Obama. Focusing on U.S. relations with China, as well as the absurdity of government spending, they performed a new skit that was both timely and humorous. Humor is of course in the funny-bone of the beholder so I've included the video for you to make that decision for yourself.

A new video is out on YouTube about the words – Natural Born Citizen – Three Little Words. Definitely worth watching. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B278681E23614868 M Publius Goat http://countryfirst.bravehost.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=105

Hell from above....

Lucky or blessed? An inch either way would have been a life changing experience, to say the least! MailOnline

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Yes, fellow citizens, that tall man you saw Tuesday night promenading around State Circle in Annapolis while wearing a blue and buff lieutenant general's uniform and a sword was none other than George Washington. The commanding officer of the Continental Army and first president of the United States was here to visit the town where, as a young man in the mid-1700s, he enjoyed all kinds of sporting events - and lost substantial sums at the horse races and gaming tables. "Reynolds Tavern," he said at one point while standing on the steps of St. Anne's...

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday. The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009. Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and...

Enlarge ImageBusybody. A new study suggests HSV-2, seen here as orange particles, is constantly active even when patients don't have symptoms. Credit: Dennis Kunkel Microscopy Inc./Visuals Unlimited, Inc. Genital herpes comes and goes--at least that's what it looks like to patients. But a mathematical model published in the 18 November issue of Science Translational Medicine suggests that herpes never slumbers. Instead, nerve cells continuously pump out the virus in minuscule quantities over a sufferer's lifetime. If the findings hold, it may be much harder to stop patients from passing on the infection than researchers thought. As many as one...

Early signs suggest the number of suicides in the U.S. crept up during the worst recession in decades, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of states that account for about 40% of the U.S. population. Available data, still incomplete, suggest that this recession, like past ones, coincided with an uptick in suicides. The data from 19 states find an increase in suicides in the recessionary year of 2008 from 2007. Those states historically account for about half of annual suicides in the U.S. Calls to suicide hotlines are rising. And suicides in the workplace and the military -- a...

Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles, Richard Waters in San Francisco and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York Published: November 22 2009 23:01 | Last updated: November 22 2009 23:01 Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US...

Global temperatures are on a path to rise by an average of 6C by the end of the century as CO2 emissions increase and the Earth's natural ability to absorb the gas declines, according to a major new study.

On yet another surreally beautiful November day in South Bend, the Notre Dame sliding Irish completed the hard-to-believe scene by falling to yet another inferior opponent at home, losing to Connecticut by the final score of 33-30. For although Senior Day had the senior captains coming out of the tunnel with arms interlocked with Charlie Weis' to show their unwavering support for their embattled coach, this embarrassing performance most certainly buried Charlie, and assured he would be exiting the campus with them, if not before. Still, if Saturday's loss meant Charlie would no longer be roaming the sidelines, it also...

The San Francisco Chronicle's Kenneth Harney is speculating on what the Federal Housing Authority may have to do to shore up its balance sheet. A few things should be kept in mind about such a move: 1. The FHA has been a main spigot through which the government has been propping up the real estate market (See: Real Time Madness: Watching the FHA Prop Up the Housing Market) 2. The FHA is in real bad shape. John Carney points out: The FHA has expanded from guaranteeing just 2% of mortgages to over 20% in just a couple of years, dramatically...

A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night. Student Rom Houben was misdiagnosed after a car crash left him totally paralysed. He had no way of letting experts, family or friends know he could hear every word they said. Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (pictured posed by model) 'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46.

http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2009/03/kafka-at-albany.html Last June I reported on the allegations of academic fraud levelled by a British mathematician, Doug Keenan, against Professor Wei-Chyung Wang of New York State University at Albany. Dr Keenan alleged that in work that has come to be widely cited in climate studies, work that included the collation of data from temperature measuring stations in China, Professor Wang made statements that "cannot be true and could not be in error by accident. The statements are fabricated." In August 2007, Dr Keenan submitted a report (pdf) of his allegations to the Vice President for Research at Wang's university and...

President Barack Obama’s mission to reform US healthcare vaulted another legislative hurdle over the weekend, but the scramble to secure his own party’s votes sheds light on the messy compromises that may be needed to get it to the finish line.

Exactly a fortnight from today, the United Nations climate change conference opens in Copenhagen. Its purpose is (or was) clear: to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Under Kyoto, all those developed nations that ratified the treaty (all, in practice, except the US) agreed to cut their carbon emissions to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The successor treaty, to be agreed at Copenhagen, was intended to secure a cut in global emissions, from the developed and developing world alike (and China has now overtaken even the US), of 50 per cent below...

How much do we love the new Dolce & Gabbana ad campaign featuring Scarlett Johansson? She smoulders in front of the camera, all bust and hips and pale flesh, looking unapologetically curvy - and boy, does she look sexy. This return to form marks the start of a backlash against the waif-like models who are used in most fashion campaigns and harks back to an era when women looked glamorous when they went to the shops. Read more:

Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then. As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before. And it's not just the frozen parts of the world that have felt the heat in the dozen years...

The TERRY ANDERSON SHOW.. Articulating the Popular Rage! A warrior in the fight against illegal immigration and those who promote it (the Squatter Support Squad) for over a decade! From the streets of Los Angeles to the halls of congress, Terry has been there. No one has the passion and common sense of Terry Anderson...He is A MUST listen! The BEST one hour of radio you'll find anywhere. Sunday Nights- Listen on the radio! 12-1 AM EDT, 11-12 PM CDT, 10-11 PM MDT, 9-10 PM PDT KRLA - 870 AM - Los Angeles -- KDWN - 720 - Las Vegas...

A first edition of Charles Darwin's seminal "On the Origin of Species" will be sold this week after it was found in a family's toilet in southern Britain, an auction house said Sunday. The book, which was first printed in 1859, was bought by a family for just a few shillings in a shop about 40 years ago, Christie's auction house said. The family has since kept the work on a bookcase in the guest lavatory at their home in the Oxford area, it said. The book will go under the hammer in London on Tuesday, to coincide with the...