Free Republic

Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government — but he doesn't believe in God. His political opponents say that's a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they've got the North Carolina Constitution on their side. Bothwell's detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state's antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Consititution. "The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it's certainly not relevant...

Ok, calling all the mono-syllabic fill-in hosts who supposedly write "opinion" pieces but have not the courage of their own convictions to sign their name to either their written nor broadcast work: Explain this! Romney is 5% behind, Palin is 6% the also-rans are running... behind. Hey Jude... you're being called out... cause someone put a "bullet" in the "head" of your anonymous opinions.

Washington (CNN) -- Members of the Congressional Black Caucus called on President Obama Friday to address the skyrocketing unemployment rate facing minorities -- especially African-Americans and Latinos -- and greater economic conditions plaguing low-income communities. "Our job is to make sure the legislation that gets to the president's desk responds to the degradation and the crisis in our community," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, at a Friday news conference. "Our community is bleeding. And we are the worst hit." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in November 2009 for blacks is at 15.6 percent --...

VALLEY STREAM (WPIX) - A Nassau County jewelry store owner was shot in the torso as he faced three would-be robbers and, amazingly, was able to detain one suspect until police arrived. At 7:11 p.m., three suspects -- a woman and two men -- attempted to rob Papandrew Jewelers, located at 11 Sunrise Highway at Franklin Avenue in Valley Stream. One man, Edward Hamilton, 24, of Brooklyn, produced a handgun and the store owner retrieved his own gun from behind a display case, according to police. The two exchanged gunfire when Hamilton jumped over the display case. The store owner...

* HOUSTON - A would-be robber is shot to death by a tire store owner in north Houston, and officers are searching for three suspects who got away. The shooting took place after 8 p.m. Wednesday at the 11100 block of Bauman Road. Police say four men tried to stage a robbery at the El Mante Tire Shop at the 11000 block of Bauman Road at approximately 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The store owner, who has a license to carry a concealed handgun, drew his weapon and started shooting. One robbery suspect died in the shop, but three others escaped in...

History serving “a social aim,” rather than chronicling the past in a detached manner, is what readers get in A People’s History of the United States. With any luck, “The People Speak,” the History Channel documentary based on the book that premieres this Sunday, will be, like so many Hollywood productions, unfaithful to the original. Given A People’s History of the United States’ infidelity to facts, this might be the only chance viewers have of seeing anything resembling an accurate retelling of history.Through Zinn’s looking-glass, Maoist China, site of history’s bloodiest state-sponsored killings, transforms into “the closest thing, in the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a judge's order that backers of Proposition 8, the state initiative that banned same-sex marriage, give their campaign strategy documents to opponents trying to overturn the measure. In a unanimous ruling today, the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals tossed out the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008. Walker had said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8...

Unfortunately, what Harry Reid giveth, Harry Reid taketh away.

My office sent this press release earlier in the week. You are invited to attend my town hall on Chinese drywall. See details below! Also, let me know how you think I'm doing. Take my 1-question survey here. ---Congressman Cao -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 9, 2009 ***MEDIA ADVISORY*** Cao to Host Town Hall on Chinese Drywall Washington, DC - Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao (LA-2) will conduct a public town hall and briefing about Chinese drywall for Louisiana residents whose homes were rebuilt with this tainted material. The event will be held on Monday, December 14, 2009 from 9:00am - 11:00am CST at...

The first time Howard Zinn's now-classic book "A People's History of the United States" appeared on TV was in "The Sopranos" on HBO, when Tony's teenage son A.J. came home from school with a copy of the book and told his parents that, according to Zinn, Columbus was a slaveowner and murderer. Tony got mad, and replied, "In this house Columbus is a hero. End of story!" That was 1999. This Sunday, Dec. 13, Zinn's "The People Speak" – the documentary inspired by his books "A People's History" and "Voices of a People's History," will be broadcast on the History...

Finally, there is some good news on the health care front. The headlines went to a possible compromise on the contentious issue of the public option, but the greater victory may lie in less-publicized Senate action that might actually cut the costs of our impossibly expensive health care system. This week, the outlines of such a change emerged in a package of amendments proposed by 11 freshman Democratic senators — who have an abundance of common sense that more than compensates for their lack of seniority and renown. Since they came back from their August recess, with the angry words...

   ***** ~ Canteen Music Dedication ~ *****~ Support The Artists ~   Support the artists you hear throughout the Canteen! Click on the links below! Keep the music going! ArtistDirect l  Internet Radio l  AOL Music l  Sonique (Lycos) l  Real Radio Live365 l  971TheRiver  l  GotRadio  l  Wherehouse  l  Target  l Shoutcast AFRTS l  VH1 l XM Radio l  BET l  audiophile l  Virgin Radio l  Soma (Alternative) Acaza l AudioRealm l VH1 l  Yahoo! Launch Music l  Radio Disney l  Live-Radio Net ITunes l Amazon l Salsa Radio l MTV l CMT l Ticketmaster l Billboard...

The classic confrontation between Humphrey Bogart and Alfonso Bedoya in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is being reprised, featuring banditos from East Anglia, Penn State, Washington and the U.N. "We're Federales," they tell us. "You know, climate police. Evidence? We ain't got no evidence. We don't need no evidence. We don't have to show you any stinkin' evidence." The U.S. alone has spent over $30 billion on alarmist "climate science" the past 20 years — plus $35 billion on renewable energy — based on the banditos' tales of a global warming catastrophe if we don't slash fossil fuel use and...

State and university employees could wind up with IOUs in their pay envelopes instead of checks in February if the planned sale of state buildings hits a snag, state Treasurer Dean Martin warned Monday. And that could leave worker with a piece of paper that won’t help them buy food for their families, pay the mortgage or heat their homes.

It wasn't so long ago that Barack Obama's speeches were being hailed as "extraordinary" "rhetorical magic" (Joe Klein in Time) that should be "required reading in classrooms" (Bob Herbert in The New York Times). Pity the poor grade-schoolers who have to be on the bus at 5am for a daylong slog through the 4,000-word sludge of the President's Nobel thank you. Rich Lowry, my boss at National Review, writes that Obama has become a "crashingly banal" bore. The good news is that he "is not nearly as dull as, say, Herman van Rompuy". Who? Oh, come on. Herman van Rompuy....

On Wednesday, Liberty Counsel lawyers appeared in court to defend Lisa Miller. Last month a Vermont court ordered the custody of Miller's biological daughter transferred to her former lesbian lover. The ACLU and Lambda Legal Defense Fund are seeking to transfer custody of 7-year-old Isabella to Janet Jenkins, a Vermont resident who lived with Miller in that state before the latter's conversion from the homosexual lifestyle. Miller met with the ire of a Vermont judge after she refused to send her daughter to scheduled visitations with Jenkins because, she says, Isabella has been traumatized by past visits. The Virginia Court...

Hypocrisy: Sen. Max Baucus' office defends his girlfriend's big pay raise by pointing to the raises others living off the taxpayer spigot got. What sympathy for the 10% of Americans suffering unemployment. If you didn't think the Democrats in power in Washington are doing enough to spark a people's rebellion, just look at their latest shenanigans. Congress is raising the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion in hopes that next October, when Republicans will be pounding them on this, voters won't remember what they were up to way back in December of 2009. But that astronomical amount...

Hundreds of thousands of people living in Catalonia will vote in referendums on Sunday Around 160 municipalities across the northeastern region will stage unofficial polls asking their citizens whether they are in favour of breaking away. The 700,000 votes are not legally binding but demonstrate the strength of a movement that threatens to rupture Spain. Chief among those leading the revolution is Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona FC, the club that has become synonymous with Catalan identity and the struggle against perceived oppression. When he is not on the sidelines at matches, Laporta has been travelling between towns in Catalonia...

Amid mounting criticism that minorities, women and low-income workers are missing out on business opportunities and jobs under the stimulus bill, the Obama administration is urging the nation's governors to work harder to ensure that these groups participate fully in state transportation projects that receive federal funding. The issue of equity has cast a cloud over the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act in recent weeks as various reports appear to confirm what minority advocates and some economists have been saying: that the fruits of the stimulus bill may not be reaching groups who are suffering the most in the worst...

HEIDELBERG, Germany — Staff Sgt. Azhar Sher is a rare and valued commodity in the Army. Fluent in Pashto and a variety of other languages spoken in Afghanistan, the infantryman has spent most of the past five years there because, he said, he believes in the mission. Five deployments in five years, no problem. But back home, living on post? That can be a problem for a Muslim with Pakistan-born parents, no matter how patriotic. "I belong to a very large extensive family and, let me be very blunt and honest with you, my family wears traditional clothes and practices...

Gordon Brown has said Britain will pay £1.5 billion to a European Union climate change project despite the British recession and his Government’s huge deficit. At an EU summit in Brussels, the Prime Minister offered to pay the money into an EU fund intended to help poorer countries to cut their carbon emissions. The offer will make Britain the largest contributor. France and Germany each promised around £1.2 billion to the EU fund, which will be worth around £6.5 billion in all. Mr Brown had previously signalled the UK contribution would be £1.2 billion. Officials said the Prime Minister offered...

Health Care: IBD recently ran an extensive series of pieces by economist Thomas Sowell highlighting government's involvement in the financial meltdown. We did it both to correct the historical record and to warn about future interventions of the same kind. The most important warning is over current plans by Democrats in Congress and the White House to "reform" the U.S. health care system in a way that will end up hamstringing private insurers, bankrupting doctors and adding trillions of dollars to U.S. debt — while not improving health care in America one jot. As the sagacious Sowell has noted many...

Thomas SowellIBD Exclusive Series: Thomas Sowell on The Politics of the Housing Boom (Fifth and final installment of serieesCongressional support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went far beyond words. When the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight — the agency overseeing these government-sponsored enterprises — turned up irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting and in 2004 issued what Barron's magazine called "a blistering 211-page report," Republican Sen. Kit Bond called for an investigation of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, tried to have their budget slashed and sought to have the leadership of the regulatory agency removed. Democratic Congressman...

LifeNews.com Note: Center for Bioethics and Culture consultant Wesley J. Smith, is also a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the associate director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. He is the author of the Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World.   "Flash Forward" is a new and interesting television drama presented on the ABC Television Network. The premise is brilliant - due to reasons still unknown, everyone in the world (except the bad guys) blackout for two minutes seventeen seconds. Planes crash, people collapse on the streets, swimmers...

COPENHAGEN, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Population control has emerged as a key issue for "climate change" talks in Copenhagen, after the issue was brought forward by Chinese delegates. Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) said, "Population and climate change are intertwined, but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming." "Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern...

While the wizards of smart are convening in Copenhagen, attempting to solve what they perceive to be the biggest global societal ill - anthropogenic climate change, one of the things that likely won't be discussed is the possibility of the opposite occurring, global cooling. But AccuWeather's chief hurricane forecaster, Joe Bastardi warns it is a bigger threat than global warming. He says the phenomenon is coming, based on three priniciple reasons - 1) Natural reversal of ocean cycles, 2) Low sun spot activity and 3) An increase in volcanic and seismic activity. Bastardi made this case on the Fox Business...

For all who have challenged the notion that man is single-handedly destroying the planet with everything from America's industrial system to your shiny SUV — all the way down to your uncle's favorite cow "Gertrude" on the farm, take a moment to lower your shields as the opposition is about to be sent on the run. As reported by Jon Lott on FOXNews.com, validated e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England show an extended conspiracy by scientists to hide facts that would challenge man-made global warming and to purposely skew data presented to...

TONY Abbott says it was a visit to the Victorian country town of Beaufort that crystallised his thinking on the folly of supporting Labor's emissions trading scheme and set him on the path to ousting Malcolm Turnbull. During 24 hours that altered the course of Australian politics, Abbott concluded that the Nationals and a substantial number of Liberal Party MPs would vote against the ETS; there was a lack of certainty in opinion polls and regional Liberal MPs were facing a bush revolt over the issue. When Abbott arrived at a gathering of the Liberal faithful in Beaufort, it was...

In a shocking news flash, BigGovernment.com has published a Department of Justice Memo that authorizes the Obama Administration to send terrorists into Illinois! Via Obama Executive Order 13492, terrorists WILL BE SENT to Illinois.

Flip-flops, cheap and disposable footwear worn by celebrities and beachgoers alike, are clogging up the world’s oceans and posing danger to wildlife, according to a recent New York Times piece. “Tons and tons and tons of plastic waste, including flip-flops, flow down rivers and clog drainage systems, and animals are swallowing them,” said Julie Church, a marine biologist. Church decided to do something about the plastic waste problem by starting a company in Nairobi that recycles old flip-flops into toys and gifts. Called UniquEco, the store has found a following among those in the eco-fashion boutique business. But flip-flops are...

George W. Bush's State of the Union address must have baffled anyone who voted for him based on his pledge to cut the size of government. That speech has been properly and efficiently pilloried by Joseph Stromberg, Alan Bock, and others. The speech was both Wilsonian and Clintonian, which is to say that it proposed a political solution for all human problems and backed this idea with a promise of massive increases in federal spending on just about everything. But should we really be so surprised? Contrary to popular myth, every Republican president since and including Herbert Hoover has increased...

THE Taliban commander was back in the village. Our base roared to life as we prepared to capture him. Two Chinook helicopters spun their blades in anticipation in the dark. Fifty Afghan commandos brooded outside, pacing in the gravel. I was nearby, yelling into a phone: “Who else do we need approvals from? Another colonel? Why?” A villager had come in that afternoon to tell us that a Taliban commander known for his deployment of suicide bombers was threatening the elders. The villager had come to my unit, a detachment of the United States Army stationed in eastern Afghanistan, for...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is alarmed by what it perceives as growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Minnesota. Prompted by news of racist fliers being posted in St. Cloud and the candidacy of Lynne Torgerson against Rep. Keith Ellison, the group called for religious leaders to repudiate anti-Muslim acts. In a press release Thursday, CAIR quoted from a Minnesota Independent profile of independent candidate Torgerson, noting that her web site says Islam “is not ‘religion’ recognizable under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.” (She actually states that one “portion” of Islam, a line in the Quran about “slay[ing]...

WESTPHALIA, Germany, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At least eight Russo-German families in Salzkotten, Germany, have suffered heavy fines and now their fathers have been sentenced to prison, because they have refused to send their elementary school-age children to mandatory sexual education classes. The International Human Rights Group, a Christian legal defense organization that defends religious liberty and the right to homeschool in Europe, reports that in addition to refusing to allow their children to attend sex-ed classes, the families also resisted having their children enlisted in a theatre production of "Mein Körper gehört mir" or "My Body Belongs to...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq, Dec. 11, 2009 – Imagine being a father who served in the military for 10 years, preparing to send your son to basic training, and wishing you could go in his place. After a 17-year break in service, Sgt. Billy Willingham enlisted in the Army as a motor transport operator. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. A soldier in the 1st Armored Division’s 4th Brigade doesn’t have to imagine it. He has lived it first-hand. Army Sgt. Billy Willingham, 121st Brigade Support Battalion, joined the Air Force in April 1982. His first duty...

Senate Omnibus Funds Planned Parenthood, UNFPA, Ditches Abstinence Washington, DC -- The omnibus spending bill the Senate will consider this weekend could pave the way for funding abortions in the nation's capital for the first time in 13 years. There are other winners and losers in the legislation -- with Planned Parenthood and the UNFPA dining at the Congressional trough. http://www.lifenews.com/nat5768.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 2009 – It’s a scene that’s played out in airports across the country numerous times in the past eight years: Families and servicemembers clinging to each other, either sad to leave or happy and vowing to never let go again. The emotion always is appropriate, but the location of the scene – just beyond the airline ticket counters and before the security checkpoint - robs the actors of precious minutes with loved ones. Those lost minutes are unnecessary, at least as far as the Transportation Security Administration is concerned, a TSA spokesman said. “TSA permits the airlines...

A sword-wielding man died early this morning hours after being Tased twice by police. Police identified him later Friday as Hatchel Pate Adams III, 36, of the first block of Overlook Court in Hampton. According to a news release from Hampton Police, officers responded to a complaint involving an emergency custody order in the 1st block of Overlook Court about 11 p.m. Thursday. Officers tried to make contact with Adams, but he refused to come to the door, police said. They went inside after calling one of the man's relatives, who came to the scene. Adams, carrying a Samurai-style sword,...

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 11, 2009 – Task Force Mountain Warrior servicemembers and Afghan contractors are working to replace a bridge across the Saracha River here. International Security Assistance Force servicemembers assemble the new Saracha Bridge in Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, Dec. 7, 2009. The Afghan government, along with Afghan and international servicemembers, are working together to complete the bridge. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. After flash flooding destroyed the bridge along Highway 1 Aug. 31, Afghan contractors immediately built dirt bypasses and moved concrete to support the footers and piers of the bridge. In September, a...

The submarine-based Bulava (Mace) missile has been billed as Russia's newest technological breakthrough to support its nuclear deterrent, but the repeated test failures are an embarrassment for the Kremlin. The missile failed in its 13th test on Wednesday morning, Russia's leading economic dailies Vedomosti and Kommersant reported on Thursday, quoting sources in the military-industrial complex. Hours later, the Defense Ministry admitted the failure, saying the launch had been made by the Dmitry Donskoi nuclear submarine from a submerged position in the White Sea. "It has been established ... that the missile's first two stages worked as normal, but there was...

A branch of the University of Minnesota may require all education students at the school to understand and accept that they are either privileged or oppressed and that they be well-versed in issues like "white privilege," "institutional racism” and the "myth of meritocracy in the United States." Critics are condemning the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, which proposes making race, class and gender issues the "overarching framework" of all teaching courses. The task group, formed as part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative at the state university, aims to change how...

The black pastor who leads Bond Action Inc. in support of "family, traditional moral values and positive, honest race relations" says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., should be ashamed of comparing opposition to President Obama's plans to socialize medicine in the U.S. to support for slavery. "Reid's comparison of legitimate Republican opposition towards the Democrats $2.5 trillion health care plan to segregationists is deplorable," Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson said today. "This was an attempt to smear Republicans as racists in order to take the focus off the details of this awful socialist health care bill. Reid's remarks are a...

Lactose-intolerant Policy Is Sour On Milk, Cheese, Yogurt Washington, D.C.— The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) expressed puzzlement and disbelief today after learning that the popular website Facebook has banned the promotion of dairy products. Facebook’s guidelines state that no promotions are permitted if the “objective is to promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, dairy, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline.” An additional policy also prohibits awarding promotional prizes that include dairy products. “It’s dumbfounding, and just plain dumb,” said CCF Research Director David Martosko. “Why would anyone lump milk with cigarettes and prescription painkillers? Does Facebook believe...

Editor's note: Silvia Henriquez is the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, a nonprofit policy and advocacy organization based in New York and Washington that works on behalf of reproductive health interests of the nation's 15 million Latina women. When Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered her oath last summer, many women -- and especially Latinas -- felt renewed hope as a champion of women's rights took her place on the U.S. Supreme Court. With Democrats in the White House and both houses of Congress, we believed that we could stop playing defense and actually advance women's rights,...

OSLO, Norway - There’s no reason to apologize for supporting U.S. war efforts, American country singer Toby Keith said Friday, just hours before performing at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. Keith, whose 2002 saber-rattling hit “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” was inspired by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said he stands by President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Keith’s appearance at the downtown Oslo Spektrum arena, scheduled for 1900 GMT (2 p.m. EST), has been questioned by Norwegians dismayed that a performer known for a fervent pro-war anthem is playing...

Phoenix, Arizona --(AmmoLand.com)- Thanksgiving is a time for reflection on our blessings, including the blessings of liberty and on the sacrifices our forebears made for us. With that in mind, son Brandon and I wrapped up our Thanksgiving observations slung into battle rifles on the firing line at the beautiful, newly remodeled and re-christened Joe Foss Shooting Complex near Buckeye, Arizona. As I concentrated on sight picture, breathing and trigger control, I was truly thankful. Over the past four years, as regular readers of this space will be aware, a group that goes by the delightfully seditious name of “Revolutionary...

It would be conveniently tidy for the story of last month’s Parkland police massacre to begin and end with recently-departed cop killer Maurice Clemmons; tidy for social apologists who never seem to run out of excuses for people like Clemmons, and tidy for people left in his wake. This is not a tidy world. If it were, Clemmons would still be in an Arkansas prison and the four police officers he gunned down would be looking forward to the holidays with their families. Clemmons, it is now evident, represents the tip of an iceberg that encompasses several relatives and some...

Investigators say they’ve uncovered evidence that a Pittsfield Township homeowner was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot another man outside his home Wednesday morning. Both men were armed when they got into a dispute, police revealed this afternoon. The shooting took place early Wednesday on Rockport Court in the Arbor Creek subdivision. The accused shooter, Adham Mofiid Abu Farha, 34, was released from the Washtenaw County Jail this afternoon as police continue to investigate the shooting outside Farha’s home in the Arbor Creek subdivision. Police say Michael Robert Rajchel, 28, of Van Buren Township, came to Farha’s home at...

PALM BAY, Fla. -- Some accused teen burglars are lucky to be alive, police say, after they broke into a Brevard County house whose homeowner had guns. Investigators say they are working to find out if the teenagers are responsible for any of the dozens of home break-ins plaguing Palm Bay in the past few weeks. The homeowner told Eyewitness News the suspects are his son's friends. Officers said the suspects broke into the house on Sanger Street in Palm Bay (see map) with a neighbor sitting right outside watching their every move. Homeowner Rodney Halfhide says he was taking...