Free Republic

Neil Sankey, who has almost 20 years experience serving in Special Branch and the Bomb Squad, is now devoting his energies to proving that Mr Obama is not a natural born US citizen. He joined the Birthers after meeting Orly Taitz, one of the leaders of the group, which disputes Mr Obama’s claim that he was born in Hawaii. Over the past year, Mr Sankey has been integral in some of the most aggressive efforts to remove him from office by claiming that his presidency is illegitimate. He tried to block Obama's inauguration last year by contacting all 538 electoral...

Abortion Activist Judge Hamilton Confirmed with Help of Ten Republican Senators by James Tillman and John-Henry Westen WASHINGTON, DC, November 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Senate voted 59-39 yesterday to confirm President Obama's first circuit court appointee, the pro-abortion Judge David Hamilton. Although hailed as moderate by various news sources and dubbed "thoughtful and distinguished" by President Obama, many conservatives have condemned him as a judicial activist who places his own preferences above the law. "As a judge, Hamilton has shown himself to be soft on crime, radically pro-abortion, and hostile towards religion," wrote a group of prominent conservatives upon...

Questions concerning legal ethics are often quite tricky. Other times, however, they’re not, like when certain alleged activities are blatantly criminal. Consider the situation involving made against Paul Bergrin, a New Jersey defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor indicted back in May on a host of charges. (Click here for an earlier LB post on Bergrin.) Among other things, federal prosecutors have accused him of using a restaurant in Newark as a front for a cocaine-distribution network; overseeing a $1,000-an-hour call-girl ring; and ordering the murders of two witnesses.

More allegations that Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson was protected by the Obama Administration released today. Did the Obama Administration cover-up sexual misconduct charges for Mayor Johnson, in order to save his election, and the Capitol City millions of federal dollars? A joint report released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Finance Committee Republican offers new insight into the political maneuvering at the White House to remove the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) Gerald Walpin and revealed explosive allegations (see pages 24-30 of Just Released Walpin Referral Document) of...

No. 1: Camden, N.J. No. 2: St. Louis, Mo. No. 3: Oakland, Calif. No. 4: Detroit, Mich. No. 5: Flint, Mich. No. 6: New Orleans, La. No. 7: Birmingham, Ala. No. 8: Cleveland, Ohio No. 9: Jackson, Miss. No. 10: Memphis, Tenn. No. 11: Gary, Ind. No. 12: Compton, Calif. No. 13: Baltimore, Md. No. 14: Richmond, Calif. No. 15: Kansas City, Mo.

A federal district court judge has just ruled that two disgraced Pennsylvania state court judges, Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., are protected by immunity from facing legal action for courtroom acts that consisted of over 6000 corrupt decisions, including shipping children to "reform schools" that had paid off the judges.

GELSENKIRCHEN, GERMANY -- In this nation that embraced one of the world's most aggressive campaigns against global warming, the Pokropp family can almost hear the cha-ching when switching off their lights. A kilowatt of electricity costs three times as much here as it does in the United States, supercharged with high taxes to discourage use and to help fund renewable energy development. Meanwhile, a 50 percent "eco-tax" has sent the price of gasoline soaring to $8 a gallon. To manage costs, the family of three unplugs all their appliances but the refrigerator at night, avoids driving and limits steam baths...

A convicted murderer serving a life sentence goes before a judge to ask for electrolysis treatments as she seeks a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation. Michelle Kosilek (KOH'-sih-leck) was born as Robert and has been living as a woman in an all-male prison in Norfolk, for murdering of his wife, Cheryl, in 1990. Prison officials oppose Kosilek's request for surgery, saying the sex change would pose security problems. U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in 2002 that Kosilek was entitled to treatment for gender identity disorder, but stopped short of ordering surgery. Kosilek sued again in 2005.

“It is a characteristic of all movements and crusades that the psychopathic element rises to the top.” Robert Lindner How much longer will Al Gore get a pass from the mainstream media? A little bit longer if their failure to react to the devastating revelations of files hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia is a measure. Their behavior reflects how most, especially from the left, have abetted the scientists who deliberately perverted climate science. We now know Gore’s errors are based on the global warming fraud orchestrated by a few scientists centered round...

Christopher Daniel Castro-Alvarez, 17, pled guilty in federal court Friday to charges of murdering Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas during a robbery. In court, he testified that he and others lured Rosas from his vehicle to rob him. But Britt Craig, who heard the fatal shots and spoke with Rosas shortly before the Agent was killed, told East County Magazine that he does not believe that the story is plausible.

http://www.cnsnews.com/cnsnewstv/v/GdqG6Unz8z

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact. In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck...

Here's a new maxim: Nothing good ever happens when the Congress is in session on a Saturday night. As you know, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-Nev) cajoled, coerced, and co-opted Senators Mary Landrieu (D-La) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) into adding the 59th and 60th necessary votes to prevent a GOP filibuster of Reid's health reform bill. Reid and Obama Administration officials relied on the time honored method (used by Republicans and Democrats) of getting recalcitrant Members to vote a certain way: Bribery which, in the real world, is a felony but in Washington it is called "hardball." In Sen....

An 18-year-old North Las Vegas man has been released from University Medical Center after an alleged exchange of gunfire that left a Metro Police officer dead Thursday morning at his North Las Vegas home. Prentice Marshall, 18, was booked into the North Las Vegas Detention Center, along with Saul Williams, Jr., 20. A 17-year-old boy also was arrested in the fatal shooting of 30-year-old Officer Trevor Nettleton, a three-year veteran at Metro. Gang charges have been added to all three. Marshall left UMC about 7 a.m. today, police said. He has been charged with one count each of murder with...

Californians have plenty of reasons not to trust their state attorney general to conduct an honest probe of ACORN and the hidden-camera videos that helped expose the group's criminal inclinations for the world to see. This radical, perpetual office holder who handed out acorns during mayoral inauguration festivities in 1999 -- describing them as symbolizing "seeds of change" -- goes way back with ACORN. The New Left crusader known as Governor Moonbeam when he was the state's chief executive from 1975 to 1983 has had close ties to the group for years, according to a former ACORN official. ACORN endorsed...

Just hours after Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa released a report Friday on their investigation into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, the Obama White House gave the lawmakers a trove of new, previously-withheld documents on the affair. It was a twist on the now-familiar White House late-Friday release of bad news; this time, the new evidence was put out not only at the start of a weekend but also hours too late for inclusion in the report.

Today's report about political developments surrounding the global warming issue is brought to you by the letter "C." 1. C is for "carbon dioxide." Environmental extremists and major news journalists call this gas that is exhaled by all animals, and that is food for plants, a dangerous pollutant. Yet we would all die without it. That makes me sad. 2. C is for "climate change." It used to be called global warming, which many activists with a socialist bent warned would bring more catastrophic weather events, elevating seas, and economic ruin. They said because humans continue to produce greater amounts...

You can't say we weren't warned ahead of time about Obama's globalist and controlling tendencies. As candidate Obama explained in a campaign speech in Portland on May 18, 2008, it would be tough for him to get together with the world's leaders and establish international controls on human behavior if we continue to carry on with our individualistic hankerings to eat cheeseburgers and drive things that are twice as big as the SmartCar. "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times and then just expect that...

A US man has spoken of his anguish after discovering his long-lost father is apparently the notorious serial killer Charles Manson. Matthew Roberts, 41, tracked down his biological mother after she put him up for adoption in 1968. But he sank into depression after the woman revealed his dad is none other than the jailed cult leader, The Sun reported.

Kennett, Missouri, is best known these days as the hometown of pop rock diva Sheryl Crow. Sheryl Crow and now Heather Ellis. The latter is no rock star, but she is a bona fide celebrity (or one famous for being famous). Ellis, 24, the celebrated Wal-Mart line-cutter, earned her 15-minutes of celebrity when she accused a Wal-Mart shopper, cashier, assistant store manager, security guard, and Kennett police officers of racism. By the second day of the trial -- which ended last Friday in a plea bargain -- it was clear from mainstream media coverage that pretty much the whole town...

A brawl ending in deadly gunfire has fingers pointed at both the officer and the victim. Action News has learned that the man who fired the fatal shot was an off-duty Philadelphia police officer Frank Tepper. The victim is identified as 21-year-old Bill Panas.

The results of CQ Press's 16th annual crime city rankings are in. The report ranks 393 American cities in six different categories -- murder, rape, burglary, robbery, aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft. The end result of these rankings were used to compile this list of the most dangerous cities in America. A year ago, New Orleans held the crown. Click through our gallery and see which place dethroned The Big Easy and what other cities made the list.

Riding into the Oval Office on a tidal wave of support, President Barack Obama’s overreaching policy proposals concerning issues like healthcare and global warming have cost him in the polls. While still maintaining high likability ratings, the U.S. public has begun to differentiate between Obama the person and Obama the politician. Just under three quarters of Americans, 74 percent, told Quinnipiac pollsters they like Mr. Obama, but the president’s policies garnished support from only 47 percent of the country. Such a gap demonstrates that Mr. Obama’s policies are costing him a number of the Independent voters who delivered him the...

For those of us who have tracked Islamic militancy in Europe, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's actions are not extraordinary. Since Muslim militants first tried to blow a French high-speed train off its rails in 1995, European intelligence and internal-security services have increasingly monitored European Muslim radicals. Whether it's anti-Muslim bigotry, the large numbers of immigrant and native-born Muslims in Europe, an appreciation of how hard it is to become European, or just an understanding of how dangerous Islamic radicalism is, most Europeans are far less circumspect and politically correct when discussing their Muslim compatriots than are Americans.

As tragedies go, the Senate's Saturday night vote to proceed with a debate on a vast new health-care entitlement wasn't exactly Shakespearean. The outcome was expected but the writing wasn't as good and the acting was more Jon Lovitz than Laurence Olivier. The only real drama was how much publicity and pork the supposedly fence-sitting Democrats could exact in exchange for a vote that everyone knew was a foregone conclusion. At this stage of the legislative process, Democrats are at ramming speed, determined to pass this destructive legislation at whatever cost before more voters figure out what is being done...

The economic programs and policies currently in place are truly astounding. I don't think I have ever seen a more harmful economic environment for the country. While some of these programs started with Bush, the Obama Administration has advanced them to insane levels. Logic, economics, common sense and history must be defied to believe a recovery is possible in this environment. The nation's standard of living will be substantially lowered unless changes in policies are forthcoming. To understand why this economy cannot recover under these policies, it is necessary to differentiate between the macroeconomic and microeconomic approach. Arguably, macroeconomics is...

A man who Bessemer police said was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon as he attempted to rob a business has been identifed by the Jefferson County Coroner's Office as Kevin Dudley, 41, of Pleasant Grove. Dudley, armed with a shotgun, attempted to rob The Bait Shop at 729 9th St. N. in Bessemer, said Capt. Mike Roper. The owner shot and killed him, Roper said.

Bredesen has been asked to cut as much as 9 percent from budgets. Releasing as many as 4,000 nonviolent felons from Tennessee's prisons. Placing caps on TennCare coverage. (Ironic huh...) Closing State run Mental Health Faculties. Jacking up tuition at state universities. Sounds like a mini California... Copy and paste the link below, Tennessean flings a fit over links posted here...

During 2006,major international humanitarian assistance was required for 8 million people whose lives were threatened in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia – including around 1.6 million children under the age of five.1 Because of climate change areas that have previously experienced droughts are now facing them more often. And these droughts are often more severe and last for longer. In addition, cholera – a waterborne disease – remains a severe threat. There were recent outbreaks in several countries: including Burundi, Malawi and Mozambique in 2005; and Angola, Kenya and Malawi in 2006.

SINGAPORE (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and the yen in Asia Monday, after a top U.S. Federal Reserve official said he would prefer to keep the central bank's asset-buying program active beyond its current cut-off date. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said an extension of the program--which has been widely considered a negative factor for the dollar--would give policymakers more flexibility as they seek to shepherd the economy toward recovery. Such a comment "suggests that the Fed will continue to underwrite the rally in risk...

The taxpayer is having to fund millions of pounds a year to "bribe" foreign murderers, rapists and other prisoners to go home after a 60 per cent jump in cases. One in four of the foreign criminals who were deported last year only went home after being offered a voluntary return package worth up to £5,000. It means ministers spent £3.4 million of public money encouraging offenders who have no right to be in Britain to leave. It emerged earlier this week that one of those was a Malaysian migrant who killed a 17-month-old baby. Some foreign prisoners can already...

Russia has now turned into a "criminal state", according to the man who was once its leading foreign investor. Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital was reacting to the news that his lawyer had died in prison in Russia after being held for a year without charge. He told the BBC that his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had in effect been "held hostage and they killed their hostage." Through Hermitage Capital, Bill Browder campaigned against corruption at some of Russia's largest companies. Russian officials say they are investigating Mr Magnitsky's death. In 2005, Mr Browder was banned from Russia as a threat...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- After several months of improvement in housing, manufacturing and sales, the U.S. economic recovery appeared to sputter in October, leading investors and analysts to re-evaluate whether their forecasts were too rosy. The economic data to be released in the holiday-shortened week ahead could provide a few more "what-were-we-thinking?" moments. All in all, though, the data shouldn't kill hopes for modest growth while we wait for the private sector to start hiring again. Last week, a "reality check" rippled through the markets following weak data on housing starts and industrial production, said Nigel Gault and Brian Bethune, U.S....

(IsraelNN.com) The New York Post has revealed that Iran is using Islamic charities in the U.S. to fund pro-Iranian professors in American colleges. According to the newspaper, Iran has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to universities such as Columbia in Manhattan and Rutgers in New Jersey, to fund the employment of lecturers who support and sympathize with the Islamic Republic.

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact. In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck...

Adam Lambert aimed for the kind of controversy Britney Spears and Madonna are known for generating, completely stunning the audience at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theatre and the millions watching the American Music Awards live on ABC. Glambert definitely delivered on his promise of a “sexy” performance as he closed the live show with simulated oral sex from a male backup dancer, a brief make-out session with his male keyboardist and a giant mirrored prop so the audience could see the looks on their own shocked faces. Rolling Stone has learned that producers weren’t informed about the guy-on-guy kiss in advance,...

The Copenhagen Conference opens on December 7, 2009. On that same date in 1941, the Japanese government and military forces bombed one of our protectorates at the time, but today a Sovereign State; our leader at the time, a liberal Democrat President named Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared it “A Day of Infamy.” Could that happen again 68 years later? I’ll tell you what I think...

On Friday, The Washington Examiner's chief political correspondent, Byron York, had another stunning report on the scandal involving the firing of Americorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. Earlier this year, Walpin was fired in what appears to be a politically motivated attempt by Democrats to silence his investigation into allegations of misuse of $800,000 in federal funds by Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson. The funds were provided by the federal Americorps program to St. Hope, a nonprofit school that Johnson then headed. York's latest blockbuster is his reporting of a congressional report prepared by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa,...

Is Congress, behindhand on Barack Obama's deadlines on health care and cap-and-trade legislation, and flummoxed by the failure of the stimulus package to hold unemployment below 10.2 percent, prepared to address the immigration issue next year? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says it better be. The current situation, she told the Center for American Progress on Nov. 13, "is simply unacceptable." We need a "three-legged stool," with provisions to strengthen enforcement, legalize some illegal immigrants and improve "legal flows for families and workers." Ironically, the push for legalization in 2006-07 resulted instead in stronger enforcement measures. Some 600 miles of...

Banks are avoiding commercial real estate losses by refusing to assess property values. Losses on commercial real estate have been the proverbial "other shoe" waiting to drop on bank balance sheets for months now. So far, though, loan losses on office buildings, shopping malls and real estate developments have been subdued. What's the holdup? A troubling report from one analyst contains some clues. Banks are doing everything they can to avoid placing a firm value on buildings that have likely fallen sharply in price, writes Joe Morford, who monitors bank stocks for RBC Capital. This kind of "see no evil"...

A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a Wisconsin man barred from owning firearms because of his criminal record, ruling the lifetime prohibition may violate Americans' Second Amendment rights and calling into question the future of a 13-year old gun control law. In a 3-0 decision on Wednesday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a trial judge to take a second look at the evidence that a 1996 federal law prohibiting anyone convicted of a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" is constitutional in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that emphasized "the individual right...

Larry Grathwohl was one of the experts/witnesses we interviewed for the documentary. He had been undercover inside the Weather Underground and had worked closely with Ayers, Dohrn, and their fellow terrorists. I asked, "Well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill." Twenty-five million people.

What's the hottest ticket in the nation's capital? An engraved invitation to Tuesday's White House state dinner, the first hosted by President Obama. He and the first lady will honor India's prime minister. But in a departure from the traditional venue -- the elegant State Dining Room -- the Obamas will gather with a few hundred VIPs in a huge, heated tent on the South Lawn. The guest list for the black-tie gala remains a closely guarded secret. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will certainly be there. Several notables are good bets, such as Oprah Winfrey and...

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...

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...

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...

Tensions over Iran's nuclear programme have spurred an arms race in the Gulf with record defence deals being negotiated. Saudi Arabia, long the major arms-buyer in the region, is now being overtaken by relative minnows such as the United Arab Emirates as they share their neighbour's fear of the growing military strength of their Shia neighbour. Iran yesterday began a week-long military exercise to test its readiness against missile attack. The exercise was overtly intended as a message to Israel that any attack on its nuclear programme would be met with strong resistance. "If the enemy wants to test its...

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., warned of major cuts to Medicare and large tax increases as the U.S. Senate neared its first votes this weekend on health care reform. McCain opposes health reforms pushed by Democrats and President Barack Obama that would create a public-option government system to cover the uninsured and operate alongside private insurance companies. "I don't think Americans really understand the scam that's going on here of beginning to collect taxes, tax increases and Medicare cuts of approximately $1 trillion beginning 40 days from now," McCain said Saturday. "In other words, the first of January, according to...

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. 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 why they did it."