Free Republic

CHEYENNE — A head-on collision that killed a Ten Sleep couple last year is prompting a new legal challenge to a state law that protects bar owners from being held responsible for the actions of intoxicated patrons. John and Carol Munkberg died Jan. 28, 2008, in a fiery crash in Big Horn County. He was 70, and she was 66. The other driver, Randall LaBrie, 41, of Malta, Mont., had a blood alcohol level of 0.16 percent — twice the legal limit — and was driving in the wrong lane, police reports stated. LaBrie and his two passengers also died....

"Constitution ‘Charges Congress With the Health’ of the People" (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told CNSNews.com that Congress has the authority to force individual Americans to buy health insurance because the U.S. Constitution “charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people.” The words “health” and “well-being” do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that in the entire history of the United States the federal government has never mandated that Americans buy any good or service. Both the House and Senate health care bills, however, include provisions that require all legal residents...

From NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico MontanaroJust how angry is the public with the country's two leading political parties? Angry enough that the conservative, libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or the Republican parties, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. The Republican Party maintains its net-negative favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll, with 28 percent viewing it positively and 43 percent seeing it in a negative light. For the first time in more than two years, the Democratic Party also now holds a net-negative fav/unfav, at 35-45 percent. By comparison, the NBC/WSJ poll...

This weekend, the Congressional Budget Office released “a very strange memo” titled, “Budgetary Treatment of Proposals to Regulate Medical Loss Ratios.” You wouldn’t know it from the title, but that little memo is the smoking gun that shows how congressional Democrats have very carefully hidden more than half the cost of their health care bills.

"Humanity needs a profound cultural renewal; it needs to rediscover those values which can serve as the solid basis for building a brighter future for all," he said. "Our present crises -- be they economic, food-related, environmental or social -- are ultimately also moral crises, and all of them are interrelated." He called on all people to "move beyond a purely consumerist mentality" so that they could "rethink the path which we are traveling together" and adapt "a lifestyle marked by sobriety and solidarity" between the haves and the have nots. Environmental issues deserved the attention of the world community...

Complete with a raft of documents and exhibits, fired AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin on Wednesday filed a motion for summary judgment in his lawsuit demanding reinstatement to his job -- his own motion not even waiting for the judge to rule on the Obama administration's motion to dismiss the case without hearing or trial. A close perusal of his motion, affidavits, and exhibits suggests to me, for the first time, that this case has potential to reach the Supreme Court regardless of how the lower court rules.... Thus we get a glimpse of the tangled web of interests and...

Manchester – Potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty came to the leadoff-primary state today urging the GOP to return to its conservative base and then practice what it preaches if it hopes to regain the lost trust of Americans. "We've got to explain using conservative principles, conservative ideas and values, why our approach, even if it may not be instant gratification, is better for families and individuals and regular working people all across this country on those kind of issues, those bread and butter, meat and potatoes issues," he told the New Hampshire Union Leader in an...

Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...

How serious is the split in the Democratic Party over the ObamaCare compromise that leaves progressives without a fig leaf? Howard Dean has gone on national TV for three days in a row demanding that his allies in the Democratic Party defeat the bill and force Barack Obama and the White House to start over from scratch. Joe Scarborough managed to get both Dean and David Axelrod on his show today to get both sides of the (Democratic) story. First, Axelrod says the Left would be “insane” to kill ObamaCare now:

The Founding Fathers created a Republic, but 60 Senators are poised to take it away. With the pending disaster of the passage in the Senate of a bill nationalizing one sixth of the U.S. economy and our entire healthcare system at a cost of over $2.5 trillion, we are faced with a crucial question: are the Republican senators using every means at their disposal to stop this looming, tyrannical abuse of power? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be “no.” The Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, has parliamentary rules and procedures that give the minority the ability to stall legislation....

Last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller definitively settled the fact that the Second Amendment secures an individual right—not a collective one—to keep and bear arms. Yet that ruling applied only to the federal government (which oversees Washington, D.C.). Does the Second Amendment apply against state and local governments as well? Through a series of legal decisions handed down over the past century, the Supreme Court has gradually held that most of the protections in the Bill of Rights apply to the states via the 14th Amendment, which declares, “No State shall make or enforce...

Ecological disaster has long been a hallmark motif in many science fiction stories and movies, from "The Day of the Triffids," where alien plants take over earth to "Them," the classic science-fiction movie about ants transformed into giant arthropods by the atomic bomb. In the Hugo-winning science fiction novel "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner, (perhaps the ultimate environmental disaster novel), the final solution to stopping the environment from being destroyed by man is to kill off the most "wasteful" nation on earth, the American people! James Cameron's new sci-fi extravaganza, "Avatar," set to open Friday, says virtually the...

“I hate Sarah Palin, I… I just hate her!” That is not an uncommon outburst from some when it comes to feelings about one of the most polarizing figures (in “liberal” minds) in the political arena. As I write about the political happenings of the former governor of Alaska, I am continually amazed at both reader responses and callers to my radio program, Conscience of Kansas, when it comes to the level of hatred that Palin generates from some in the public. So, who are the real Palin-haters? Is there a common factor that binds people who find their blood...

The February 2010 issue of GUNS Magazine is online, and a letter by NRA Life Member David Lundeen regarding my Firearms Freedom Act "Rights Watch" column caught my eye. He cited the September 2009 issue of their American Hunter magazine, and observed: [I]t is clearly stated “Firearms Freedom Act “ supporters have never planned to test these laws in criminal cases, and no one who puts himself in that situation should expect support from the NRA.” It's true. I'm a Life Member and get American Rifleman, and it's on page 18. Their rationale? [T]his kind of litigation faces major obstacles–mainly...

WASHINGTON -- After nearly a year in office, the defining political image of President Barack Obama has yet to emerge. Is he a hawk or dove, a liberal or a moderate? His Nobel Peace prize speech exposed his ambivalence. He harkened back to the Roman Catholic theologians to defend his "just war" in Afghanistan -- but he also expressed his ideals for a better world. Measuring Obama’s performance is truly in the eyes of the beholder. To those who were enthralled with Obama’s eloquence in the presidential campaign, reality is setting in. News flash: He doesn’t walk on water. But...

American Life League 17 December 2009 CONTACT: Katie Walker540.659.4942| kwalker@all.org  Washington, DC (17 December 2009) – Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, issued the following statement upon hearing news Sen. Bob Casey is set to introduce “compromise� legislation on abortion as part of the Senate health care reform bill: "We call on the leaders of the pro-life movement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic members of Congress to stop fighting to maintain the abortion status quo, which treats human beings as property; to stand firm against band-aid compromises; and to oppose the entire deplorable health care...

tly sent the following letter to our senior senator, Max Baucus: Max, let's start out by saying that you have been doing a good job for Montana in recent years and that is why I have voted for you every time you have been on the ballot. That, I'm afraid, is about to change if you keep going down the path you are on concerning the requirement for health insurance or risk a fine. This is unbelievable and un-American. You see Max, until recently I had no health insurance and made too much money for Medicaid. I was stuck in...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. FP: Victor Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Hanson: Glad to be here again. FP: Sarah Palin is, clearly, carving out a national presence right now. It’s not just the appeal of her book, but also her outspokenness on the Copenhagen conference and other issues. What do you think she might be up to? And what is she tapping into? What are her possibilities? Hanson: I think she taps into a current of populist unhappiness in the country with Washington insiders, Big Money, and...