Free Republic

The Mitt Romney camp have been hammered in the press, speaking about ‘the 47%’ of the electorate, but they have presented themselves and their ideas to no fewer than ‘the 100%’ of the electorate. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have stood in front of known liberal hostile groups such as AARP and the NAACP and spoken about what they believe in, and taken much heat for it. The media adores playing soundbites of crowds booing the Republican hopefuls. On the flip side however, what ‘hostile group’ has Barack Obama spoken to? Has Barack Obama had the stones to stand in...

Anyone else ever see this pop-up from the Obama campaign masquerading as news? The item is in the lower part of my screenshot.This guy is an absolute scumbag, and it looks like Google is helping him publish his breaking 'news' stories..

OK, with oil now trading at just a bit over $81.00 a barrel after today, when is the bottom going to fall out of these gas prices? In New Hampshire today, I just paid $3.65/gallon today. According to NYMEX.com, the price of RBOB is $2.78/gallon. It seems to me that gas should be somewhere around $3.35/gallon, unless I am missing something. Anyone have any insight on this?

Hello, I was wondering if someone could post the website where you can wager on political races, and see the trends of where people are placing their money. I used it watching the Scott Brown election, but I cannot remember the address for the life of me. Thanks for the help in advance, FReepers!! : )

No one should offer pronouncements about what it means to be well-educated without meeting my wife. When I met Alisa, she was at Harvard, putting the finishing touches on her doctoral dissertation in anthropology. A year later, having spent her entire life in school, she decided to do the only logical thing . . . and apply to medical school. Today she is a practicing physician -- and an excellent one at that, judging by feedback from her patients and colleagues. She will, however, freeze up if you ask her what 8 times 7 is, because she never learned the...

Concord – The mandatory seatbelt bill hit a bump in the road when the Senate Transportation and Interstate Committee voted to recommend the bill be killed. The committee voted 3-2 on the recommendation and the full Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill May 31. On Wednesday, committee chairman Sen. Robert Letourneau, R-Derry, voted to recommend killing the bill, joined by Sens. Bob Clegg, R-Hudson, and Betsi DeVries, D-Manchester. Committee vice chairman Sen. Peter Burling, D-Cornish, and Sen. Molly Kelly, D-Keene, opposed the recommendation.

Massachusetts lost more residents than it attracted in recent years, at a greater rate than any other state but New York, according to Census Bureau estimates released today. The estimates show that between 2000 and 2004, more residents left Massachusetts than moved to the Bay State -- with an average annual exodus of 42,402 people. That amounts to a rate of 6.6 people leaving the state per 1,000, second only to New York's rate of 9.6 residents per 1,000 during that period. The US Census Bureau report measured how many people are moving in and out of states, and it...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Kirby Puckett died Monday, a day after the Hall of Fame outfielder had a stroke at his Arizona home, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 44. Puckett died at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Kimberly Lodge said. He had been in intensive care since having surgery at another hospital following his stroke Sunday morning. Puckett carried the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991 before his career was cut short by glaucoma. His family, friends and former teammates gathered at the hospital throughout Monday. The hospital said Puckett was given last rites and...

Just an observation that I have seen.... Tonight watching the "The Telltale Mozzarell" episode of The Soprano's, and I cannot remember a show on TV where the male son or heir of the family was nurtured and treated the same way as the petulant daughter. None were pushed to excel at anything.. I didn’t notice that until now, watching this episode…. Not that I am against nurturing petulant petulant daughters... ..Just don't forget the idiot sons.. We need those in the world too...

<p>Just heard on ESPN...Reggie White, dead of a heart attack at 41..</p>

I RECENTLY saw a movie called "28 Days Later," in which a major city has been largely deserted by its inhabitants. Although most have fled, the few remaining have barricaded themselves in their apartments against marauding bands of crazed victims of a strange virus. Major highways have been blocked by ruthless security forces.

<p>In spite of often negative headlines about America's children, they actually are doing better than most adults think, suggests new research from Child Trends, a family advocacy organization. And that news could influence the future of programs designed to help children, the report says.</p>

<p>THERE ARE NO good lies. But public outrage over some lies can be puzzling given the tolerance for others.</p> <p>Former first lady and now US Senator Hillary Clinton writes that she did not believe that Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky until he admitted it to her about eight months after the story was first reported. In a recent CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll, 56 percent of the respondents said she was not telling the truth. Since the book was released, conservative talk radio hosts are trying to whip up the public into a frenzy of contempt. It is not hurting sales and may be helping them. After a week on bookshelves, the publishers say Clinton's book has made back its advance.</p>

<p>Just when Democrats were feeling stymied by the (short-term) triumph of the Bush Iraq strategy, some self-inflicted wounds have been opened in the coalition. Each, in its own way, reflects the hubris of the far right that dominates this administration. If Bush II goes the way of Bush I, he will have been done in by the excesses of his own camp.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Dick Gephardt remembers the days when Democrats were unwilling to take on the first President Bush, whose approval ratings were astronomically high after a successful military mission in Iraq. They sat on their hands for months until the postwar euphoria subsided. That was 1991.</p>

<p>The Web site of Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera was refused assistance this week when it sought help from Akamai Technologies of Cambridge, Mass., in dealing with hacking attacks and massive interest from Web users.</p> <p>Akamai rents out a network of 12,600 servers that help customer Web sites deal with unexpected traffic, hacker attacks and Internet bottlenecks.</p>

Scientists have revealed the full technical details of their discovery of vast reservoirs of ice beneath the Martian surface. So much ice has been found in the polar regions that if it were to melt it would deluge the planet. The ice may stretch far underground to regions where it is warm, raising the possibility of warm caverns of meltwater in which scientists hesitantly speculate conditions could be suitable for life. But they caution that we may never know until we have rock and ice samples returned to Earth by an unmanned probe for analysis. Third time lucky William Boynton,...

<p>STOUGHTON - The four men emerged Tuesday night from a restroom at BJ's Wholesale Club dressed in fatigue jackets. They took off their shoes and began praying loudly in a language that sounded like Arabic.</p> <p>Alarmed, customers rushed to the store manager, demanding to know who the men were and what they were doing. When the men left without a word of explanation, the manager called Stoughton police. Within 30 minutes, the police had evacuated the BJ's and called in firetrucks and a State Police bomb squad from Stow.</p>

<p>With a landmark state study on slave-era insurance policies about to be released, Gov. Gray Davis addressed the issue of possible reparations to California minorities yesterday, saying, "Clearly, we want to right any wrongs and do justice to people who were taken advantage of."</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate majority voted Thursday to confirm John Ashcroft to be attorney general, giving President Bush a victory in his first battle with congressional Democrats, who served notice they will try to defeat conservative nominees in the future. The vote stood at 58-41 Thursday afternoon but the roll call was being held open to accommodate Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who was returning to the Capitol from a family funeral. Biden voted against Ashcroft earlier this week when the Committee approved the nomination. Ashcroft had the support of all 50 Senate Republicans. But Democrats mustered enough votes to ...