Free Republic

I’m putting my money on the notion that there was at least one gay-rights group that didn’t cheer when President Barack Obama signed the most recent “hate crimes” bill last week. That would be the group known as the “Pink Pistols.” They’re the one gay-rights group you can bet Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and virtually every other liberal in the country have absolutely no use for, but more about it later. First, let’s get down to the real nitty gritty about what the new “hate crimes” bill will do, and what it won’t do. If you live in the...

Ready or not, House Democratic leaders they are pushing for a healthcare vote this week. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is poised to send a bill to the floor Monday in its final form, setting up a vote as early as Thursday. The three-day delay is not for amendments and not even for debate; Thursday is the earliest Pelosi could hold a vote and keep her pledge to allow members and the public three days to study the final legislation. But it’s possible Pelosi won’t have the votes by Thursday, and leaders have already warned their caucus that they could be...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the House version of health care reform legislation last week, but most voters are still opposed to the effort. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down from 45% a week ago but unchanged from two weeks ago. Fifty-four percent (54%) now oppose the legislative effort, up three points since last week. Seventy-three percent (73%) of liberals support the plan, but just 18% of conservatives agree. Only 23% of all voters Strongly Support the plan while nearly twice...

The Obama administration is considering an almost complete surrender in Afghanistan, if the report this weekend by the BBC's Katty Kay is accurate.Speaking as a panelist on the Chris Matthews Show, a weekend public affairs broadcast, Kay reported on the internal debate at the White House, "There are real questions being asked, I think, about whether even with a big injection of troops this is a real country, a real war that you can win."And there's a new phrase which is floating around the White House which is 'minimum security'. That we're not actually aiming for a country which is...

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh warned in a TV interview of unprecedented "radical leadership" in the White House and called President Barack Obama a narcissist who is "immature, inexperienced, in over his head." Limbaugh, who regularly rails against the administration in his weekday radio program, said the health care overhaul working through Congress would become "the biggest snatch of freedom and liberty" ever seen in the United States. In an interview taped for "Fox News Sunday" nearly a year after the presidential election, Limbaugh derided Obama's recent visit to Dover Air Force Base to observe the return of 18 service...

Democratic pundit Bob Beckel has been under contract with Fox News for six years. And in the midst of the White House war against the cable network, some of his liberal friends think that’s six years too many. They invited him to lunch the other day for an intervention: Why is Beckel — a true-blue Democrat who worked for Robert F. Kennedy and ran Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign — giving comfort to the enemy? Beckel’s response: “I talk to more persuadable voters in a month than anybody on MSNBC and CNN talks to in a year.” In the eyes...

The chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations committees—Representative Howard Berman (D-Calif) and Senator John Kerry (D-Mass), respectively—are demanding the librarians at the Law Library of Congress to suppress a report on the Honduran crisis. The problem with the report is that it concludes that the removal of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was carried out in accordance with that country’s constitution. “This report directly contradicts the President’s position on this crisis,” Berman pointed out. “It creates an air of confusion regarding US policy on this matter. On matters of foreign policy, this nation must speak with one voice...

David Plouffe slammed Sarah Palin on Sunday for her role in the Republican Party and the NY-23 race, saying the GOP was hanging up a sign, “No moderates need apply,” that will marginalize the party for years to come. Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, said of Palin on NBC's “Meet the Press,” “I think we should thank John McCain for picking her.” “What’s going on in the special election in N.Y. 23, I think, is a remarkable phenomenon that could affect our politics for years to come," Plouffe said. He added that Palin, who endorsed the conservative candidate over...

President Barack Obama took office with an extraordinary set of promises as a candidate. He has fulfilled many of the promises to the left-wing base of his party, such as his executive order three days after he was inaugurated restoring the funding of abortions with foreign-aid money.  But how has he done with the popular campaign promises he made to middle America, the promises that got him elected? Candidate Obama pledged to cut taxes for the middle class, lower overall taxes, cut government spending, reduce the deficit, cut the cost of healthcare waste, eliminate most government secrecy, and reform ethics...

Republican Dede Scozzafava endorsed her former Democratic opponent Sunday in the race for an upstate New York congressional seat, one day after Scozzafava dropped out of the contest. Scozzafava dropped out after Conservative Party candidate Dough Hoffman experienced a late-in-the-game surge. But on Sunday, Scozzafava backed Democrat Bill Owens -- the announcement was made in a statement send out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same," she said. "In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He...

Everything has a fundamental essence, a quality that makes it uniquely itself. Take an orange, for example. It's not only a citrus fruit -- it's an orange-colored citrus fruit. Horticulturists can alter its size, its texture, its sweetness, and even (to a limited extent) its color, but as long as its color is orange, the fruit remains "an orange" because that color is its definition. Change the color, however, and suddenly you have the un-orange, the anti-orange. You have something completely different that no longer contains the essence of the original fruit. Lose the essence and you lose the orange....

Jason Shih, an Assistant Deputy Director to the campaign of NJ Gov. Jon Corzine was arrested last night on drug charges. East Rutherford police say they pulled over the 25-year-old on Route 17 for driving while using a cell phone. Police say they found 19 ecstasy pills and several hundred glassine envelopes. He was charged with possession of a controlled narcotic and paraphernalia that is used for distribution. Story continues below He was released on $15,000 bail.

EAST RUTHERFORD -- A Paramus man claiming to work for Gov. Jon Corzine’s reelection campaign was arrested Friday night on drug charges after police found Ecstasy tablets in his car, authorities said.A Corzine spokeswoman said the man does not work for either the governor’s campaign or the Democratic State Committee.Jason Shih, 25, was pulled over on Route 17 by East Rutherford police at about 11:30 p.m. last night for talking on his cell phone. Police found 19 Ecstasy tablets and hundreds of small glassine bags used for distributing drugs, police spokesman Capt. William Schanel said.Schanel said Shih told police he...

Solomon Dwek is the kind of guy who can get you a kidney. He's also the kind of guy who authorities say knew how to get dirty money cleaned and could easily navigate the backrooms of New Jersey politics. He is, after all, a self-described member of the "green party," where "green is cash." The FBI put Dwek's knowledge to use, and that has placed him at the center of a corruption case that is unprecedented by even New Jersey's notorious standards. Relying largely on Dwek's work as an informant, authorities in July arrested 44 people — seven of whom...

Follow this link: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:FSxRMOybe7QJ:www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenddetail.php%3Fcycle%3D2006%26cmte%3DC00104471%26name%3DShih%252C%2BJason+Shih,+Jason,+Paramus,+NJ+%24420+Field+Consulting+Services+11/03/06&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Democrats lied today.

Early Saturday morning, 7Online.com, the website for ABC's New York affiliate WABC-TV, reported the previous night's arrest of Jason Shih, an alleged campaign worker for Governor Jon Corzine (D-NJ) charged with "possession of a controlled narcotic and paraphernalia that is used for distribution." For some reason, although the headline "Corzine campaign worker arrested" shows up in a Google News search, the page is no longer available: "We are sorry, but the URL you requested could not be found. The page you are looking for may have been renamed, moved, or deleted." A search of "Jason Shih" and "Corzine" at 7Online.com...

Hey Staten Island! Wake up! Staten Island is one of NYC's five boroughs -- home to cops, firefighters and a mix of hard working blue collar and white collar families. Staten Island was hit real bad on 911. They have no clue how dirty the Working Families Party is. But we do. The Democrats are a racketeering organization using their proxies like the Left wing Working Families Party (how ironic), ACORN, and community organizing organizations to steal elections and usurp the will of free men. (more here) The NY Post came out with this story on the Working Families Party...

The Democratic Party of New Jersey is pressuring the Secretary of State to ignore discrepancies on the signatures that are supposed to verify absentee ballots. Under state law, anyone can cast an absentee ballot for any reason. Paul P. Josephson, a lawyer representing the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, declared “this level of scrutiny is unwarranted and discriminatory. Just because a signature contains misspellings, or a different address or name than the registered voter is insufficient reason for disqualifying the vote. Many Democratic voters are poorly educated, illiterate, or worse. Cracking down on these ‘errors’ will disproportionately depress the votes...

Our lawmakers have a trick for you this Halloween. Starting Sunday 10% more will be withheld from paychecks to cover the states $1.7 billion shortfall in the budget. They say it isn't a tax increase, it's just an interest free loan that we will recover in April when we file our taxes. Gee thanks guys, we all feel much better now. "California to withhold a bigger chunk of paychecks," by Shane Goldmacher and W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times The provision is one of numerous maneuvers state lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved in the summer to paper over the...

Yet another example of the folly of assigning liberals to guard duty. Joining Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Thursday to vent about that pesky wabbit Joe Lieberman was Fire Dog Lake blogger Jane Hamsher. Democrats wield considerable leverage over Lieberman, Hamsher opined, to keep him from joining a GOP filibuster of ObamaCare or punish him if he does -- MADDOW: ... I think you’re right to point out that other senators sort of gently expressing their disapproval of his proverbial toplessness at this point is a bigger deal than it would be in the real world, that their words...

In this special Halloween special of the Conscience of Kansas radio program with our airing of "political nightmares" and the "Democrat Monster Name Game" which received submissions from all 50 states and 5 countries. It's a fun spooky time and we invite you to listen and comment?

So much for the most open and ethical government everFinally, it is clear what President Obama meant when he said this would be the most "transparent administration in history." -SNIP-After The Times' report revealed the administration's "donor maintenance" program, reporters from other news organizations followed up at the daily White House press briefing, where White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tried to dodge questions by referring reporters to the Democratic National Committee. But who controls every aspect of what happens at the DNC? The White House. And when the DNC sells access to government officials, who employs those officials?...

Obama fans are in a tight spot. As the White House turns ever harsher and more divisive, supporters are scrambling to explain why President Obama sounds so very different from Campaigner Obama. There are two possible explanations, neither of which is flattering. The first is that Obama was insincere on the campaign trail. The second is that his advisors – David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel -- are in control. The latter view is bound to take hold and it will not boost the president’s flagging popularity ratings. Many who voted for President Obama feel deceived. When he said in Florida...

WASHINGTON -- Internal investigations into the conduct of over two dozen House members have been exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach of security involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics. Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — also known as the Ethics committee — and a panel that refers cases to it shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday. The panel announced that it was investigating two California Democrats — Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson — even as its embarrassed...

Weary of news stories that legislative support for health-care reform is all but dead, Democratic leaders have been seizing every handy podium to declare that "the votes are almost there," "there is 90 percent agreement" on a proposal, "we are now prepared to move forward" and so on. In fact, even among Dems, there's nothing close to agreement on the major issues that have held up reform so far. Here's a primer on where the gaps between Democrats are wide: Individual Mandate: This should've been low-hanging fruit. Democrats agreed on a mandate early in the process. But it became increasingly...

The lies exposed.

Obama Requests More Options for Troop Levels The Washington post reported two officials as saying late Friday Obama asked the Pentagon's top generals to provide him with more options for troop levels in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama grappled Friday with the costs and consequences of a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, but reached no decisions about troop levels, a top aide said, as military advisers briefed the president on an armed services already taxed by challenges around the globe. The president reviewed his options with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and made clear he wants at least one more meeting with...

The Obama administration’s economic policy can be summed up as follows, “what’s yours is everyone’s.” The folks in the White House believe that the only way to achieve social and economic justice in our country is to limit and redistribute wealth

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July. The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer. The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff...

Feds Gun Down Muslim Radical in Detroit Victim Tried To Make Motor City a Muslim State ByPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org Federal officials have issued a warning that the shooting death of a radical Sunni Islamic leader in Michigan on Wednesday night may engender retaliatory violence against law enforcement officers in Detroit, Atlanta, and even Washington DC.Gunfire erupted during the arrest of Muslim gangster Luqman Abdullah and members of his group after Abdullah pulled a gun and shot and killed an FBI canine, according to a document from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (WRTAC).FBI agents returned fire at...

Sen. Durbin (D-Ill.) last night [10/26/2009] and today [10/27/2009] is once again using his leadership position to make false claims about E-Verify's reliability and to project the absolutely foolish notion that unemployment and immigration have no relationship. But while he laments the 125,000 who have recently lost their unemployment benefits (I do, too), he ignores the fact that HIS immigration policies now in place have given out 125,000 brand new work permits to foreign workers during the last month. Sadly, Sen. Durbin is Exhibit A of the intellectual hypocrisy that is pervasive in Congress. He gives speeches as a champion of unemployed...

I'm going to say this straight out: if the President does not pass his Health Care Plan soon, the rest of his time in office will be a lame duck. That said, this article is not just bashing Obama, but actual facts that you can look up yourself. If you want to lambaste him, or add to the list, do so in the comments, they are always welcome. This list is primarily campaign promises that he failed to live up to. What the President has failed to do (which he promised): 1. Prevent unemployment from breaking 8.0%. The President assured...

  In the 1970s, when about 40 percent of Democratic congressmen were pro-life, the party had a seemingly insurmountable hold on the House of Representatives. Now, less than 15 percent are pro-life, and they're in an ever-shrinking House minority. Meanwhile, the big Democratic success stories from 2004 were the new representatives in Iowa, Missouri, and Michigan, as well as new Democratic governors in West Virginia and Louisiana. All of these victories were won by pro-life Democrats.   Some in the Democratic Party read the signs correctly; otherwise, they never could have elected a relative social moderate like Harry Reid...

Supporters of Darwin’s theory continue to distinguish themselves on America’s college campuses—not for their reason and logic, but for their incredible ill manners and an almost pathological inability to engage in civil discussion. Last week, a factually-challenged attack on intelligent design was published in The Nevada Sagebrush, the student newspaper at the University of Nevada, Reno. Nothing new in that; I see ill-informed articles on intelligent design all the time. But after my colleague Rob Crowther posted a short comment suggesting that readers might actually want to hear from intelligent design proponents themselves (imagine that!), the Darwinist thought-police came out...

The new House health care bill (H.R. 3962) unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. As written, the bill purports to cost only $1.05 trillion over the first ten years and is paid for by over $700 billion in tax increases and cuts to Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug payments. But as troubling as those numbers are, the scariest thing about the bill is the solid foundation it lays for a complete government take over of the health care sector of our economy. The Washington Post describes the bill as...

House Minority Leader John Boehner appears with a copy of the Democrats’ version of the health care bill during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg) Washington - The health care overhaul bill produced by House Democrats would impose an array of new taxes, fees and government mandates on major players in the health industry, including insurers, doctors and drugs and medical devices makers. In most cases, the pain has been meted out with an eye toward raising the money needed to finance President Barack Obama's plan for reshaping the health system but...

WASHINGTON -- Internal investigations into the conduct of several House members have been exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach of security involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics. Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- also known as the Ethics committee -- shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday. The panel announced that it was probing two California Democrats -- Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson -- even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers also...

If you’ve been reading the papers lately you’ve probably concluded that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s political future doesn’t look good. The headlines speak for themselves: “Poll: Reid’s re-election numbers don’t add up”; “Harry Reid Seen Losing 2010 Reelection, Poll Shows”; “Senate Leader Harry Reid faces tough re-election” — just to name a few. If you’re just glancing at the polls, Reid’s two likely challengers are clobbering him in hypothetical match-ups — and some polls show Republican challenger Danny Tarkanian has a double-digit lead over him. Further, Reid’s approval rating ranges between 20 and 40 percent, with some polls showing...

KSTP investigated absentee ballot inconsistencies and reported their findings last night, and you can watch the video here. Many cities put up roadblocks to their investigation request -- and Bloomington threatened felony charges against KSTP if they reported on their findings. The most damning part is Sec. of State Mark Ritchie's denial of problems and response when asked to look at ballot envelopes and comment. "Ritchie first told us he could not read our examples, then said he wouldn't look at photocopies of absentee ballot envelopes." A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS investigation has found that mistakes made with absentee ballots in...

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When the historians finally finish sorting through the appalling decisions that have been made in the past two years, this one will probably be at the top of the heap. Last fall, as AIG began to realize how screwed it was, it started negotiating with the counterparties to all the credit default swaps it had written. One of the AIG's goals was to persuade these counterparties- These sorts of negotiations are exactly what should happen when a company gets in trouble. It goes to its creditors and says, look, we can't pay you everything, so here's your choice: Take something,...

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent. I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote. The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly...

Washington, DC -- It's alive. The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that Governor Sarah Palin said was tantamount to "death panels" for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday. Recently, the DNC went on the offensive not only claiming The Governor is lying but communicated to it’s supporters to attack Sarah Palin on Facebook. The DNC executive director Jen O'Malley Dillon communicated via e-mail insisting private citizen Sarah Palin has been lying and should he harassed. The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families...

RUNNING for a second term, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine insists he's "fighting for what matters most." But for whom? Corzine's record plainly shows that the New Jersey taxpayer is among the least of his concerns. His decisions have yielded a toxic business climate, out-migration of entrepreneurs and a tax system that's falling apart. A second term would be disastrous. Perhaps Corzine's most fundamental error is to consistently try to fix public-policy problems by throwing more money at them -- funding the government largesse with tax hikes on individuals and businesses.

Old Soviet joke: Moscow, 1953. Stalin calls in Khrushchev. "Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble." A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: "Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe." A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: "Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe." Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: "Prepare three envelopes." In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame-Bush free passes before the gig is up. By my calculation, Obama...

Last week's announcement that "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg slashed compensation for executives at seven large financial firms by an average of 50% stunned Wall Street, stoked the fires of populist resentment, and troubled economists. Will this government-mandated pay cut drive the most talented professionals away from these companies, endangering their recovery? Does it augur further politicization of economic decisions? Lost in the arguments over economics and political theory, however, is a more basic question: Was this action constitutional? Mr. Feinberg's ukase is the most prominent example (and not just by the Obama administration) of the exercise of power by an...

This year, New Jersey’s registered voters can request a mail-in ballot for any reason. (Before 2005, voters needed to provide a reason for why they needed an absentee ballot.) The state received about 150,000 absentee-ballot applications this year. On about 2,300 of those applications so far, the signature on the request form does not match the signature on the voter’s registration forms with the state.In a development that is depressingly predictable, the New Jersey Democratic party is asking the state to provide provisional ballots for all these voters. Those ballots could, presumably, be used to overcome any narrow lead by...

A month ago, the Law Library of Congress reviewed the removal of Manuel Zelaya from his post as President of Honduras, an act that the Obama administration called a “coup” and demanded reversed for its illegality. To the embarrassment of the White House and State Department, the Congressional body determined that Honduras acted lawfully in removing Zelaya for his crimes against their constitution, although they determined that his exile broke Honduran law. Now John Kerry wants the Law Library to retract its findings, apparently trying to rewrite history to hide the facts of the case:

President Barack Obama has been accused of betraying his campaign promise to change the culture of Washington by "selling" access to the White House to prominent donors. Leaked Democratic National Committee documents showed the party had offered up to four briefings a year from senior presidential advisers in exchange for a personal donation of $30,400 or a commitment to raise $300,000 for the 2010 midterm elections. They would also be entitled to "twice-monthly conference calls ... [and] contribute to shaping policy agendas", the documents said. Major donors to Mr Obama's presidential campaign have already been rewarded with invitations to lavish...

With mid-term elections just slightly more than a year from now, 2010 may be one of the most satisfying years since 1994 for practicing conservatives. To begin with, conservatives, or at least Republicans, should be able to take government out of the hands of reckless liberals, especially in the U.S. House. What a celebration there will be if the GOP is able to send Nancy Pelosi back to the swamp from whence she came! Said swamp, by the way, even more polluted today than when the bug eyed knot head from San Francisco took over with her foolish promise to...