Free Republic

You drink diet soda, so you must be healthier. Right? That's what New York Gov. David Paterson is talking about with his proposal for an "obesity tax" — a 15 percent slap on non-diet sugary soft drinks. Think $1 for a Diet Coke, $1.15 for a Coke. There's just one problem: Studies have found links between drinking diet sodas and obesity and diabetes. A 2005 study at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, and separate studies released in 2007 at the University of Alberta in Canada and the University of Massachusetts found that diet soda drinkers were...

As John McCain's campaign hits hard at some of Barack Obama's past associations, one person closely tied to the Democratic candidate is conspicuously absent from the attacks: the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. It is an omission that some Republican strategists and McCain supporters find puzzling and frustrating. In advertisements, in Web videos and on the campaign trail, McCain repeatedly heaps scorn on Obama for his ties to convicted Chicago financier Antoin "Tony" Rezko and to William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, the violent 1970s radical group. The Republican nominee never mentions Wright, the controversial black minister...

Is there such a thing as guilt? Is there such a thing as finding out just how guilty someone is of wrong doing by associating that person to organizations and people who are proven guilty of wrong doing? Oh yeah! If a bank is robbed and the perps caught, and one of the perps merely drove to and from the crime scene, is the driver guilty of the crime by association involvement in the crime? Absolutely. Just for the sake of exploring guilt by association, let’s presume for a moment that the driver makes a claim that he/she didn’t know...

US Christian group boycotts McDonald's for association with gay organisation Elana Schor in Washington guardian.co.uk, Tuesday July 15, 2008 The US Christian group that pressured Heinz to pull an UK commercial featuring two men kissing is now targeting McDonald's, accusing the fast-food chain of refusing "to remain neutral in the culture war". The American Family Association began a boycott campaign against McDonald's in response to the company's membership in the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).

American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA, a front for anti-Second Amendment entities) is running an ad in Pennsylvania that says Obama supports the rights of hunters and shooters. “The Democrats and Gun Control” from the Wall Street Journal [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120839466717921537.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries] exposes Obama for the liar he is. As a state senate candidate in 1996, Mr. Obama endorsed a complete ban on all handguns in a questionnaire. The Obama campaign has claimed he “never saw or approved the questionnaire,” and that an aide filled it out incorrectly. But a few weeks ago, Politico.com found an amended version of the questionnaire [http://www.politico.com/static/PPM43_080328_obama_iviquestionaire_091096.html]. It...

WASHINGTON, April 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) announced the endorsement of Senator Barack Obama on a national conference call this morning organized by the Obama for President campaign. AHSA President Ray Schoenke made the following statement in his endorsement of Senator Obama: ...As a gun rights organization we have not come to this decision lightly. We were formed two years ago because our research shows that millions of gun owners wanted a change. They not only wanted an organization that would protect their gun rights but an organization that was also committed to the protection...

For a United States Senator, Barack Obama has been doing a lot of explaining about the company he has kept for the last 17 years or so. Take some Joe Blow Alderman off the streets of Chicago and examine his friends and acquaintances and you’re bound to come up with a couple of unsavory characters that straddle the line of legality with regard to city contracts or their business dealings. But Obama is not some regular Machine pol juicing the way for his ward heeling friends so they can grow fat and rich at taxpayer expense. He is a United...

>Nebraska State Senator DiAnna Schimek's 20-year legislative career is nearly over. She feels victimized, no doubt, by the voter-enacted term limits that make this her final year in power. Still, Senator Schimek hopes to go out with her boots on, firing one final shotgun blast to maim or kill the initiative process she has long abhorred. You see, it was only through the voter initiative that Nebraskans passed term limits . . . three times. Yup. It took three petition drives and three votes of the people. Of course, term limits passed overwhelmingly each time. But a charmed third initiative...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28, 2007 – The founder of an organization that provides comfortable and functional adaptive clothing to wounded servicemembers is being honored for her efforts. Ginger Dosedel, an Air Force wife and founder of the group "Sew Much Comfort," is one of the National Military Family Association's 2007 Very Important Patriots, an honor for which a friend secretly nominated her. "I was very surprised and honored," Dosedel said. "It's nice when recognition comes from a friend unexpectedly." Sew Much Comfort provides clothing specially adapted for wounded troops recovering in military hospitals. Off-the-rack clothing often doesn't accommodate medical devices. She...

In a remarkable moment of candor, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell today acknowledged that stronger gun laws could not have prevented the horrible shooting at the Amish school in Lancaster County. Rendell, a staunch gun control advocate, admitted, “I believe with all my heart that we need more gun control” during a live press conference. But he also acknowledged that tougher gun laws would not have prevented gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV from carrying out his deadly attack, noting, “You can make all the changes you want, but you can never stop a random act of violence by someone intent on...

Candidates for Congress get questionnaires from many organizations. Most encourage us to file our answers on line. All but one have assured us that our “answers will not be edited” or censored. There was one, glaring exception, the North Carolina “Edukashun” Association. This group keeps their answers private, sharing them only with their state leaders and their “member-convenors” who interview us in district to see if we’re really toeing the party line. Answers are never shared with union members. Okay, let’s break the embargo. Here are some of my answers, and I welcome responses from teachers who agree, or disagree,...

MAHWAH -- Two white watering cans and a yellow broom dangle above the porch of a stone and shingle house perched atop North Hillside Avenue. Just below, empty flower pots and plastic chairs and tables clutter the entryway. "No trespassing" and "Beware of dog" signs line the sloping property. The more-than-100-year-old house has been home to Samantha Moor for 10 years. Its sloppy condition is the reason she nearly spent the night in jail. Moor, in her late 40s, was arrested Tuesday morning and sent to the Bergen County Jail for failing to pay $4,921 in fines issued by Mahwah...

TAMPA - Before David Kelley went to Iraq, he bought his wife a "Support Our Troops" sign to display outside the couple's home in the Westchase subdivision. When Kelley, an Army private, went overseas in November, Stacey Kelley posted the sign outside their home. For her, the sign is a daily reminder of the sacrifice her husband and fellow soldiers are making. But officials of Westchase, in northwest Hillsborough County, view the sign differently. They say the 2-foot-high sign violates community rules. Stacey Kelley, 24, received a letter from the homeowners association last month stating she could be fined $100...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

Michael Scanlon, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge growing out of the government investigation of attempts to defraud Indian tribes and corrupt a member of Congress.

Violence Policy Center Urges Washington Redskins to Withdraw From Shooting Fundraiser With National Rifle Association as NRA Lobbies on Capitol Hill to Overturn D.C.'s Gun Laws Redskins/NRA Event Announced Same Month That NRA's Magazine Attacks D.C. Mayor Williams and Police Chief Ramsey WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The Violence Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based national non-profit organization working to reduce gun death and injury, today sent Washington Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder a letter urging him to "end all participation" by the Washington Redskins in a planned shooting event with the National Rifle Association on October 25, 2005, to...

Association threatens $50 fine if pets urinate on grass Ruthie Dahlstrom has put her University City condominium up for sale. She decided to go because her dogs can't. The Legacy at Davis Lake homeowners association has threatened to fine Dahlstrom $50 every time her two Shih Tzus urinate on any common area, which includes all grass. Even the patch in front of her home. "It's ridiculous," said Dahlstrom. "Dogs have to do what dogs do. If someone reports me every time my dogs urinate, it will cost me $18,000 a month." The association's board approved the rule in July to...

An animal rights group claimed that its proposed sculpture of a sad-faced circus elephant in shackles was a form of political speech that should not be silenced. But a federal appeals court said yesterday that it could not quarrel with the city's view of the statue: This wasn't a case about free speech. This was just bad art.

<p>SEN. Hillary Rodham Clinton's pals stress that she's not a target in the criminal case against former chief fund-raiser David Rosen — but Democrats have the jitters because she could still pay a hefty political price.</p> <p>"Whether or not he's convicted, it reminds people of the downside of the Clinton years — the mess. We're a political party looking to move into the future and getting dragged back 'ceaselessly into the past,' to quote 'The Great Gatsby,' " said a top Democratic strategist.</p>

Congressional Democrats could use a spoonful of sugar this week to help swallow their medicine. With tort reform on top of the Bush administration's to-do list, a new poll suggests Americans are solidly in favor of capping jury awards against the health-care industry. The poll, done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, came the week after Presdient Bush gave speeches in Illinois to focus attention on the need for medical-malpractice reform. While only a quarter of those polled said lawsuits were their top health-care policy concern, 63 percent said they would support a law...