Free Republic

In the age of balloon boys and party crashers, regular people just don't know what to believe any more. Last week, I spent more than my share of hours trying to track down the truth about an incident on an AirTran flight out of Atlanta on Nov. 17. Flight 297 to Houston, with about 70 passengers onboard, departed gate C-16 at 4:43 p.m. Until something happened that caused the pilot to turn around and come back. Two and a half weeks later, the incident is in high dispute, thanks to some passengers who have spoken out on the Internet about...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans accused President Obama of backroom arm-twisting on Sunday, speaking at a press conference just steps away from the room where the president met with divided Democrats on an $848 billion health care plan. Lawmakers spent the weekend in Washington trying to hash out amendments to the massive bill that faces universal opposition from the chamber's 40 Republicans. To pass, any legislation will require unanimous approval of the 60 Senate Democrats, who are divided on abortion funding and a government-funded insurance program. The negotiations have "drifted off into an entirely partisan effort," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...

An internal investigation of the community-organizing group ACORN found no pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staffers on undercover videos shot by conservative critics of the group. In a 47-page assessment that former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger was commissioned by the organization to do, he criticized ACORN's management as not moving fast enough to institute reforms after an alleged eight-year coverup by ACORN founder Wade Rathke of an embezzlement by his brother.

Wrongful imprisonment in Ala. leads to $2M claim December 06, 2009 15:58 EST MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- A Birmingham woman says her husband died from the stress of being wrongfully imprisoned for the sexual abuse of two young girls, and she wants nearly $2 million in compensation from the state. The Legislature has already agreed to provide $129,000 to Donna Doyle, but she is seeking another $1.8 million to cover legal expenses, medical costs and other expenditures. Her husband, Bob Doyle, was convicted in 1992. State courts overturned his conviction in 2000, and he was freed from prison. He died...

Elliott Broidy, the former Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee, plead guilty yesterday to offering $1 million bribes to officials with New York state's pension funds. In return, Broidy got a $250 million investement in the Wall Street firm he worked for: Broidy, who also resigned as chairman of Markstone Capital Partners, the private equity firm, admitted that he had paid for luxury trips to hotels in Israel and Italy for pension staffers and their relatives -- including first-class flights and a helicopter tour. Broidy funneled the money through charities and submitted false receipts to the state comptroller's office...

Fort Hood Texas Shootings Free Republic Archives PART IIORIGINAL Fort Hood Archives... If you create a new thread, feel free to post a link to it here as well. If you post a link, you don't have to ping it to me..just take my name out of the ping field. The last time it filled my ping box pretty fast. My thanks to ALL who helped create the previous thread. Our prayers Continue...... Fort Hood's Fallen HeroesBy Freeper La Enchiladita...

On a grainy undercover videotape recorded in a hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia, an Iranian arms merchant chats with two Philadelphia salesmen who have brought samples of their military wares. The merchant, Amir Hossein Ardebili, who has flown from Tehran to make a deal, patiently answers the Americans' questions. The radar microchips? Needed for antimissile protection. The sophisticated computers? Essential to "launch the F-4" fighter. All of it, he says flatly, is destined for the Iranian military "because they think the war is coming." Against the United States. The videotape, recorded in October 2007 by undercover federal agents from Philadelphia,...

Andrew McCarthy at NRO has ferreted out this incredible story about an instructor the Pentagon sent to Fort Hood to teach our soldiers about Islam who has ties to the notorious terrorist financing outfit ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) - an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. It's been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official...

The embattled Razzle Dazzle Czar, White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers says that the Obamas were planning a "non-religious Christmas." According to the Sunday New York Times the confession emerged at a luncheon earlier this year with former White House social secretaries. The ladies must have choked on their Caesar salads when Rogers went on to announce that the Obamas did not intend to display the Christmas Creche--the manger scene that traditionally occupies a central spot in the East Room. (This revelation reportedly drew a gasp from the retired social secretaries). The idea was that the absence of the Creche...

What's Next? Posted on | December 6, 2009 [snip] Here are some of the steps I will be taking shortly: 1. On Monday 2 Appellate briefs are going to the 11th circuit court of appeals in GA on 2 cases I handled there 2. Notice of appeal in Carter case will be sent within 1 week. 3. There will be an action in DC 4. there will be a massive campaign under FOIA 5. there will be demonstrations and protests 6. there will be actions in International Courts to expose the violation of Human rights by Obama regime, the tyranny...

American college prof develops cell-phone tool to help illegals cross borderIllegal aliens crossing the U.S.-Mexico border now have a cell phone tool to chart the best route, find food and locate people who will help them enter the country – courtesy of a professor at a state-funded university. Ricardo Dominguez, a University of California, San Diego tenured visual arts professor and activist, designed the Transborder Immigrant Tool, an application much like a global-positioning system used in cars, to help illegals find the best locations for food, water and groups to assist them as they sneak into America. Dominguez is also...

<p>WEST PALM BEACH (CN) - West Palm Beach’s downtown curfew for minors - 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends - violates the Constitution, a youth rights group says. Led by 17-year-old Jeffrey Nadel, the National Youth Rights Association of Southeast Florida says it’s the first youth-led group to sue a city for violating minors’ right to peaceably assemble.</p>

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Saudia Arabia told global warming talks on Monday that trust in climate science had been "shaken" by leaked emails among experts and called for an international probe. "The level of trust is definitely shaken, especially now that we are about to conclude an agreement that ... is going to mean sacrifices for our economies," said Mohammed al-Sabban, the kingdom's top climate negotiator, told delegates at the opening of December 7-18 UN talks. Al-Sabban called for an "independent" international investigation, but said that the UN climate science body was unqualified to carry it out.

A series of embarrassing e-mails stolen from a British climate research center last month has wreaked havoc in the obscure academic circles of climate science. Now Republicans hope the “climategate” scandal will do the same to the Obama administration’s environmental agenda. Global warming skeptics believe that the correspondence, which shows scientists debating whether to manipulate scientific data to strengthen the case for man-made global warming, is a smoking gun that will change the dynamics of the climate debate. Activists also hope the purloined e-mails will derail Democratic climate negotiations on Capitol Hill and the upcoming international talks in Copenhagen

Recently Jim Robinson posted two threads declaring Free Republic’s determination to see Conservatives elected and ousting Rino's from government. Jim and a great many Freepers believe that we need to take back control. But the RNC is not hearing us. Activism is called for NOW. 2010 is nearing and we need Conservative candidates to run. The time is ripe and people are ready for another 1994 type election. But we need to make the RNC hear us loud and clear. This is the Rino Free America Project. Get involved. Make them listen. Write a letter and MAIL it. Republican...

The TERRY ANDERSON SHOW.. Articulating the Popular Rage! A warrior in the fight against illegal immigration and those who promote it for over a decade! From the streets of Los Angeles to the halls of congress, Terry has been there. No one has the passion and common sense of Terry Anderson...He is A MUST listen! The BEST one hour of radio you'll find anywhere. Sunday Nights- Listen on the radio! 12-1 AM EDT, 11-12 PM CDT, 10-11 PM MDT, 9-10 PM PDT KRLA - 870 AM - Los Angeles -- KDWN - 720 - Las Vegas -- KFNX - 1100...

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an extramarital affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana. According to a source familiar with their relationship, Hanes and Baucus began their relationship in the summer of 2008 – nearly a year before Baucus and his wife, Wanda, formally separated in April. The Senator has since divorced his wife. Hanes ended her employment with Baucus in the spring of this year. Hanes, who is divorced and now lives with Baucus in the...

An upstate graduate student was charged yesterday with stabbing a beloved anthropology professor to death. Saudi national Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani, 46, was held without bail for the murder of Binghamton University professor Richard Antoun, 77, an expert on comparative religion, authorities said. Al-Zahrani, a cultural-anthropology grad student, allegedly pulled out a six-inch kitchen knife and stabbed Antoun four times in the chest in the professor's campus office Friday.

What these two men are saying when using the term "ideological" is Muslim. It is the theology of the Koran. It is what Allah would have Obama do.

This Sunday the Discovery Channel is running two back-to-back documentaries -- "Did the Mob Kill JFK?" and "JFK: The Ruby Connection" -- exploring the role of the Mafia behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy: New information and never before heard details of a startling confession raise new questions on just who was behind the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the subsequent killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. * * * "I had the little bastard killed. He was a thorn in my shoe" -- according to a secret FBI informant these were the...

In the 1980's, the twentieth century's greatest president, Ronald Reagan, frequently spoke about the dead hand of liberalism and the deleterious effects it had on our society, our economy and our country. He drove the Democrats nuts. Eventually, George Soros (the current benefactor of Barack Obama) and his friends ran a full-page ad in the New York Times imploring President Reagan to stop using the term 'liberal' as a pejorative. Reagan responded by looking directly into the next camera he could find and saying: "Liberal! Liberal! Liberal!". The crowd roared its approval.

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said. According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network. At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that...

Nearly 100 world leaders are expected to appear at the global warming talks that open Monday in Copenhagen. This is an unprecedented showing of leadership for the issue. Yet at the same time, public opinion of climate change is souring — particularly in the United States. A recent Harris Poll, among the latest of several over the past year, shows that barely half of the American public believes that the carbon dioxide that's building up in the atmosphere could warm up our planet.

Jeremy Engelking will appear in Douglas County court this afternoon to face a trespassing charge. But here’s the kicker: The Superior man allegedly trespassed on his own property. Engelking, 27, aimed to hunt deer Wednesday morning when he noticed a pipeline crew on his land. He hopped on his ATV and told workers they had no right to be on his property because he had received no compensation from Enbridge Energy Partners L.P. for an easement. Engelking said workers told him he was in an unsafe place and asked him to come to an equipment staging area, where he continued...

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a secret government report highlighted a way terrorists might easily enter the United States carting weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't by air or sea. The classified analysis pointed to an arid and sparsely populated stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona teeming with drug runners. "This area has become very active with smuggling and encrypted radio traffic," says the report titled "Threat Assessment for Public Lands" completed by the Interior Department in late 2002. "This would be an ideal area to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction." The report, marked...

(Dec. 4) -- On Dec. 10, President Barack Obama will be in Oslo, Norway, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. His highly anticipated acceptance speech comes just days after he announced his decision to sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. So, what should the president say? Just as there are varied opinions as to whether Obama deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize, there is no shortage of advice on what the president should say to his audience in Oslo and across the globe. At Mediaite, Rachel Sklar says she believes the president should shift the focus away from himself...

There is currently a move underway to discredit Mike Huckabee over the rightful pardoning of a then 16 year old who had been sentenced to 108 years on robbery charges. I make this statement as someone who fully supports the death penalty for murderers and for child rapists, but also as someone who recognizes that getting tough on crime means fostering sensible rehabilitation, not turning first time offenders into violent career criminals. Yes, Governor Huckabee pardoned more people than most governors do. That’s because Gov. Huckabee isn’t thoughtless, callous or cruel and recognizes that public service actually entails service to...

Should an American soldier be imprisoned for killing a known Al-Qaeda operative in self-defense? Most Americans, I suspect, would answer that question with a vehement, "No!" -- or, in some cases, "Hell, no!" Unfortunately for Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna and those who love him, seven Americans thought otherwise.

Participants at Copenhagen's global climate summit will be meeting during the holiday season, but they will not be surrounded by festive Christmas decor, according to Denmark's Foreign Ministry. Since Christmas is a religious holiday, it has no place at a United Nations event, said officials planning the event. A sponsor providing fir trees for the conference's Christmas trees learned this the hard way when it was turned away by planners of the international event, the Copenhagen Post reported.

Unconfirmed reports of fatalities but no reports of American casualties PROGRESO —The international bridge here was closed Saturday afternoon after a shooting across the border in Nuevo Progreso. There were unconfirmed reports from witnesses crossing back from Mexico that one to five people were dead after gunfire among soldiers and other armed individuals. Identities of the victims remain unknown. A representative at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey confirmed there was gunfire in Nuevo Progreso and said the consulate had received unconfirmed reports of two fatalities. However, the consulate had received no notification of any American casualties as of about 6...

KHUN SAMUTCHINE, Thailand (AFP) – Surrounded by water, a Buddhist temple is one of the last remnants of a Thai village that has vanished beneath the sea -- a scene being repeated across Asia and the world. Around 60 families have already been forced away from the once idyllic fishing community of Khun Samutchine, as the sea that local people rely on for their livelihood advances inland by more than 20 metres (yards) a year. "I live on somebody else's land, I can't escape the village because I'm too poor," says Noo Wisuksin, 71, as she points to the spot...

The House of Representatives on December 3rd passed House Resolution 4154, which is deceptively called the "Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act."  This bill is part of the general war by the Democratic Party on self-employed Americans, family farms, and home businesses.  Does this sound extreme?  Consider the vote on the message:  225 Democrats in the House voted for HR 4154 and 26 Democrats voted against it; not a single Republican voted for HR 4154.  No RINOs could be persuaded to support Congressman Pomeroy's attempt to freeze the estate tax emption level at $3.5 Million and then tax all estate assets...

Close followers of the Climategate controversy know that much of the mêlée surrounds an email in which Climate Research Unit (CRU) chief Phil Jones wrote about using “Mike’s Nature Trick� (MNT) to “hide the decline.�  And yet, 17 days and thousands of almost exclusively on-line op-eds into this scandal, it still seems very few understand exactly which “decline� was being hidden, what “trick� was used to do so, and why Jones’s words have become the slogan for the greatest scientific fraud in history. As the mainstream media move from abject denial to dismissive whitewashing, CRU co-conspirators move to Copenhagen for...

BALTIMORE - Machine gunfire broke out during a birthday party at a downtown Baltimore hotel, critically injuring three people. Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee-EL'-mee) says police were called to the Sheraton hotel around 3:15 a.m. Sunday because of a report of a shooting. Guglielmi says a fight broke out at the party and then someone began shooting. Police found the Uzi submachine gun in one of the two adjoining rooms where the party was held.

There's no end in sight for this Tiger's tale -- with as many as nine birdies now in the picture. A 26-year-old former cocktail waitress in Orlando, Fla., is the latest to brag about dallying with Tiger Woods -- claiming to have carried on a nearly two-year affair with him before and during his marriage to Elin Nordegren. The waitress comes on the heels of New Yorker Cori Rist, who reportedly took up with the golf great after meeting him on the Manhattan club scene and who became his sixth named alleged mistress. The unidentified cocktail waitress, No. 7, is...

Hacked climate e-mail rebutted by scientistsPeter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, December 5, 2009 A group of the nation's top scientists defended research on global climate change Friday against what they called a politically motivated smear campaign designed to foster public doubt about irrefutable scientific facts. The allegations came after skeptics seized upon a series of hacked e-mails at England's University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit as evidence of a climate change hoax. **SNIP** Drumbeat of skepticism Despite this, the drumbeat of skepticism about global warming has never been louder. The Internet and conservative news programs have been flooded...

(Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) CNSNews.com) – Rev. Carlton Veazey, president and CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told a small crowd of pro-abortion protesters that women have a “God-given right” to abortion and that opposition from pro-life congressmen and religious leaders would never take it away. Veazey, closing speaker at a “Stop Stupak” rally on Capitol Hill staged by major pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood, NARAL-Pro Choice, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) told the crowd that not only did they have a constitutional right to abortion, but that they had a God-given one as well....

A Florida court has agreed to pay $150 a day for a makeup artist to cover up a defendant's offensive tattoos throughout his trial, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported. John Ditullio, 23, faces first degree murder and attempted murder charges. His trial begins on Monday. Ditullio obtained several new tattoos since his arrest in 2006. "They're covering up tattoos on both sides of the neck. They're covering up a barbed wire tattoo across the face," said Bjorn Brunvand, Ditullio's defense attorney, according to MyFoxTampaBay.com. Ditullio has a barbed wire tattoo on his head and an offensive expletive and Neo-Nazi symbol on his neck....

What do you have to say about that birth certificate now, Bill O'Reilly and company? Sarah Palin, last year's vice presidential candidate and the best-selling author in the world right now, affirms that questions about Barack Obama's eligibility for office are legitimate. This is no longer the "fringe" issue as most of the media would like to portray it. Radio talk-show host Rusty Humphreys asked the former Alaska governor: "Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?" She responded: "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that....

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change. It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming...

ST. PETERSBURG — Now that surveillance cameras are watching virtually every store and parking lot, it's increasingly common to see footage of robberies, fights and even shootings. But the disturbing video of a double murder in downtown St. Petersburg is something different. In graphic detail, with eight different cameras and relatively good sound, the video shows the entire August 2008 robbery of Central Food Mart, and the shootings of three men. Even in an era when video has become ubiquitous, prosecutors say this stands out as perhaps the clearest and most complete recording ever of a local murder — and...

An Atlanta, Georgia liquor store owner shot an armed robber who had just murdered an employee. Police say that an armed robber walked in to the Moreland Package Store, demanded money, and shot a clerk multiple times. Although mortally wounded from robber's shots, the clerk was reportedly able to yell for help, which prompted the store owner to grab his own gun and rush to the clerk's aid. The store owner is said to have shot the robber twice, in the arm and the leg. Police have reportedly taken a suspect into custody, and the store owner was unharmed. This...

Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, the leading organization advocating abortion in the United States today. Darwinism had a profound influence on her thinking, including her conversion to, and active support of, eugenics. She was specifically concerned with reducing the population of the ‘less fit’, including ‘inferior races’ such as ‘Negroes’. One major result of her lifelong work was to support the sexual revolution that has radically changed our society...

Here's a poser: Suppose a public official is accused of recommending his girlfriend for a promotion, though he was the one who first flagged the potential conflict of interest and officials had refused to let him recuse himself from decisions about the woman. Should he lose his job? That's precisely what happened in 2007 to Paul Wolfowitz, who was run out of the World Bank on the pretext that he had given his girlfriend a raise. In fact, Mr. Wolfowitz had made bank officials aware that his girlfriend already worked at the bank before he accepted the job as president,...

WASHINGTON – While millions of Americans every day continue to see "Where's the birth certificate?" billboards, the organizer of the effort says he has a much bigger campaign in mind. As the latest billboard was erected gratis by an outdoor advertising company in Ocala, Fla., Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND said he won't be happy until all Americans are seeing them every day – in fact, until Barack Obama himself is bumping into them at every turn. Drivers in Ocala, Fla., see the "Where's the birth certificate ?" message"It should be pretty clear to everyone by...

Job seekers never convicted try to level the playing field

LONDON (Reuters) – Humanity faces a profound emergency and unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, a joint editorial published in newspapers in 45 countries said on Monday. The 56 newspapers said they were taking the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice to implore world leaders to "make the right choice" at U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen. "The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw a calamity coming but did not...

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1960 farewell address contained more than an admonition about the danger of an expanding "military-industrial complex."  That speech was also an early warning of the current unholy alliance between the government and a scientific community dependent on the government for its funding. Americans have steadfastly recalled his initial clarion call, especially in political debates concerning the size of annual defense budgets: "... we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex.... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with...

Brushing aside tradition, the Obama administration is pushing for federal authority to regulate the nation's subway and light commuter rail systems following last summer's subway crash in Washington, D.C., that left nine people dead. Next week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will formally ask Congress to give his department authority to regulate and oversee those rail systems, a move that some Republicans on Capitol Hill worry is another alarming example of an ever-expanding federal government. "In this case, it sounds good, safety and enforcement over transit systems, but it may not be that effective," Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., told Fox News....