Free Republic

. In an interview last night on Fox News, Gov Palin stated that the Paul Ryan budget was a good start. She thanked him for having the political courage to bring the budget issues to the debate. However, she went further than any other potential POTUS candidate in calling for more and quicker cuts than even Paul Ryan's budget. In one interview, Gov Palin has positioned herself has the most fiscal conservative of the possible candidates. Her leaving her state with $12 billion surplus lends even more weight to her argument. The massive surplus in AK that Gov Palin left...

President Obama formally launched his re-election campaign Monday, urging grass-roots supporters central to his first White House run to mobilize again to protect the change he's brought over the past two years. The official start of his second White House bid comes 20 months before the November 2012 election. "We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does," the Democrat said in an e-mail to

Here are the official numbers from Publisher’s Weekly (h/t cuatrocinco45): Nonfiction 1. Decision Points. George W. Bush. Crown (11/10) 2,653,565 2. Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure. Glenn Beck. Threshold Editions (10/10) *860,0002 3. Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything. Geneen Roth. Scribner (3/10) *850,000 4. Life. Keith Richards with James Fox. Little, Brown (10/10) 811,596 5. America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag. Sarah Palin. HarperCollins (11/10) 797,955 6. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race. Jon Stewart. Grand...

Organized labor vs. Tea Parties By Henry LambMarch 21, 2011 Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature kicked a rattlesnake when they significantly reduced the power of the state's public employee labor unions. Labor unions across the country have declared war on Republicans, even threatening death, and the Tea Parties that support them. A battle between organized labor and the Tea Parties is decidedly a one-sided battle. Organized labor receives regular income from every member, often deducted by the employer and paid directly to the labor union. National Education Association attorney, Bob Chanin says: "The NEA and its affiliates are...

Obama's Approval Rating Dropped in All 50 States in 2010 Washington, DC -- A new Gallup polling analysis finds pro-abortion President Barack Obama saw his approval rating drop in all 50 states in 2010 -- in what could be an indicator of a weakened position heading into his 2012 re-election campaign. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/02/23/obamas-approval-rating-dropped-in-all-50-states-in-2010/

Bolivia blames capitalism Mexico: Bolivian President Evo Morales said capitalism was responsible for climate change in his speech at the Climate Change Summit Thursday and he insisted on the need for the developed countries to make new commitments to reduce their greenhouse effect gas emissions. “We are sometimes debating only the effects of global warming, and not the causes, and we should be responsible and debate those causes,” said the Bolivian President in the high level segment of the 16th Climatic Change Summit in Cancun. Morales recalled the responsibility of the Governments so that key decisions are adopted to face...

The results of the CPAC straw poll of presidential candidates are in, and the winner is Ron Paul, with 30% of the vote. Mitt Romney was the runner-up with 23%, and all other candidates tied with about 6% each. 84% of the voters identified themselves as fiscal conservatives, placing their highest priority on economic growth and restraining the growth of government.

As the cliche goes, there are no coincidences in politics. Obama fundraiser group Code Pink just happened to have arrived in Cairo last week for the group’s ninth visit there in two years as part of its campaign to undermine the Mubarak government and help Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza. Code Pink and the media are trying to portray the leftist group's 'sudden' appearance in Cairo Wednesday as an act of courageous support for a democratic revolution. Nothing could be further from the truth.Code Pink protests the Mubarak government in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. February 2, 2011. Code...

<p>The U.S. economy accelerated in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Real gross domestic product rose at a 3.2% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, up from a 2.6% rate in the third quarter. The gain was slightly below expectations.</p>

School Salary Database Reveals What Ohio Educators Earned In 2010By Patrick Preston Published: January 18, 2011 COLUMBUS, Ohio - An updated salary database allows Ohioans to search the salaries of administrators and teachers in Ohio's 613 public school districts. The Buckeye Institute, a conservative think tank based in Columbus, received the data from the Ohio Department of Education showing 1,800 public school employees made more than $100,000 in 2010. In the Columbus City School District, 78 employees earned more than six figures in 2010. Superintendent Gene Harris topped the list in Columbus with a salary of $185,912. The head of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Last year tied for the warmest since data started in 1880, capping a decade of record high temperatures that shows mankind's greenhouse gas emissions are heating the planet, two U.S. agencies said. Global surface temperatures in 2010 were 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 Celsius) above the 20th century average, tying the record set in 2005, the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Wednesday. "These results show that the climate is continuing to show the influence of greenhouse gases. It's showing evidence of warming," David Easterling, the chief of the scientific services...

Ron Brownstein has a piece in National Journal about voters' "white flight" from the Democratic Party during the midterms that is bound to get a lot of attention: By any standard, white voters' rejection of Democrats in November's elections was daunting and even historic. Fully 60 percent of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Not even in Republicans' 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote. If you're curious as to why we...

No doubt, 2010 was a historic year. While it's not unusual for Big Media's undeniable bias to lead them to miss, if not intentionally ignore, certain stories, in terms of volume, 2010 seems to have offered a banner crop. Granted, no single story in 2010 compares to the biggie they missed in 2009: the ascendancy of the "Tea Party" movement. After the better part of a year, the mainstream press finally caught up in 2010. Oh, sure, they're still miscasting and criticizing the phenomenon, but they no longer deny its existence or impact. The delightful irony in Big Media's year-long...

As voted on by LR readers during the month of December. Out of 568 votes cast, 58% of LR readers chose Sarah Palin as the “Best Libertarian for 2010.” Runners up included New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Kentucky Senator-elect Rand Paul, and Florida Sen.-elect Marco Rubio. Out of (approximately) 120 votes cast, 45% LR readers chose Geert Wilders, Member of Parliament in the Netherlands and leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, as the “Best Libertarian Internationally” for 2010. Runners up included Conservative Party MP in the United Kingdom Daniel Hannan, Nigel Farage – leader of the UK Independence Party, and...

The second year of President Obama's foreign-policy and national-security management continued the pattern of decline established in his first year. The unbridled and naive optimism that ill-served the country in Mr. Obama's failed freshman outing gave way to a sense of policy drift in 2010. Even the president began to question whether the United States should maintain its primary global leadership role. Mr. Obama's first-week-in-office pledge to close the U.S. detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year remained unfulfilled, the upside of which is that it has reduced the number of terrorists being released to continue their deadly...

Ayatollah Khomeini once observed that there is no humor in Islam. Well, perhaps there is no intentional humor in Islam. However, the fact is that each of our religions probably has an ounce of human unintended humor to mix with the divine aspects. My Baptist friends joke that Baptists are the ones who yell "sinner!" at other Baptists next to them in the checkout line at the liquor store. Lutherans joke about the church potlucks laden with mayonnaise-filled recipes. Jewish friends joke that a room with four Jews also contains five opinions. What of Islam? Is there a faith on...

2010. I remember when I was growing up how 2010 sounded so futuristic. And now it’s come and gone. As a kid, I used to think that by the year 2010 we’d have flying cars and that everything would be so space-age. What do we have to show for 2010? The iPad. The Chevy Volt. Those little gel toilet dots that supposedly keep you from having to clean the toilet as often. So much for a wide-open future of technological innovation. At the same time, during my politically precocious childhood, I was captivated by the seemingly limitless optimism of the...

Let's put things into perspective: 2010 was not the worst year ever. There have been much worse years. For example, toward the end of the Cretaceous Period, the Earth was struck by an asteroid that wiped out 75 percent of all the species on the planet. Can we honestly say that we had a worse year than those species did? Yes, we can, because they were not exposed to "Jersey Shore." So, on second thought, we see that this was, in fact, the worst year ever. The perfect symbol for the awfulness of 2010 was the BP oil spill, which...

WASHINGTON - No numbers in the year just ending are more consequential for President Obama than the results of the midterm elections. His party lost seats in the Senate and its majority in the House. The full impact of those numbers will only start to be felt when the 112th Congress convenes next Wednesday.But other numbers from 2010 add shading and perspective to other aspects of the second year of the Obama presidency: Speeches, statements and remarks: 491 -Since taking office: 883 --News conferences and press availabilities: 27

....In arts and entertainment, the year saw the deaths of two members of the Redgrave acting dynasty: Lynn Redgrave and her brother Corin Redgrave. Another who died was author J.D. Salinger, who spent much of his life retreating from the fame garnered by his book "The Catcher in the Rye," which shocked and inspired millions. Other artists and entertainers who died this year: Lena Horne, Dennis Hopper, Jimmy Dean, Tom Bosley, Gary Coleman, Dixie Carter, Ronnie James Dio, Art Linkletter, Kazuo Ohno, Corey Haim, Robert Culp, Peter Graves, Joan Sutherland, Leslie Nielsen, Tony Curtis, Rue McClanahan, Johnny Maestro and Eddie...