Free Republic

First Lady Michelle Obama has expanded her anti-obesity campaign to museums, enlisting them to offer “healthy food options,” and change their menus. Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is now calling for museums, zoos, gardens, science and technology centers to “join the call to action,” to decrease obesity among children. The first lady is recruiting these institutions to join the “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” project because of their power to “influence real and sustained behavior change” on the eating habits of kids. “With their impressive reach and great potential for impact, museums and gardens can launch community efforts to create...

My Dad often said: "Intrigue only begat intrigue". He was usually right. One conspiracy leads to another like a room full of mirrors reflecting themselves. Still, here goes. I have been watching Youtube collections of stuff from the talking heads and interviews today. I am cementing my earlier view... this IRS abuse is a massive smoke screen to hide something even bigger from attention. A lose the battle win the war tactic. Sure, this IRS scandal is a big deal and it is just the kind of attack on liberty all the right can get behind. Just the kind of...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The FBI believes authorities disrupted “a localized terror attack” in its planning stages when they arrested a man after converging on a western Minnesota mobile home that contained Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms, the agency said Monday.

By Pete Williams, Kristen Welker and Erin McClam, NBC News Federal agents on Wednesday arrested a suspect in the mailing of letters to President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator that initially tested positive for the poison ricin. The suspect was identified as Kenneth Curtis of Tupelo, Miss., federal officials told NBC News. Both letters carried an identical closing statement, according to an FBI bulletin obtained by NBC News on Wednesday. According to the FBI bulletin, both letters, postmarked April 8, 2013 out of Memphis, Tenn., included an identical phrase, "to see a wrong and not expose it, is to...

Happy Anniversary! Today marks one hundred years of the horrible 17th Amendment. Its Progressive purpose was to democratize the Senate, and boy, did it! In a complete about face from the philosophy, experience and warnings from the Framing generation, the States no longer participate in the federal government. One hundred years ago today, the republic ceased being federal, and overnight became a single un-confederated republic that spanned a continent. It also created a temporary, partial power vacuum, and set the stage for total consolidation of authority in the national government. Once State agency was removed, all that was left were...

Happy Anniversary. Today marks one hundred years of popularly elected Senators. Can’t you feel the democratic love? The 17th Amendment, which replaced State Legislatures as Senatorial electors with the general voting public, just doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Without it, Obama could not rule as the despot he is. Background. A wave of Populist/Progressive change began in earnest in the late 19th Century. Intellectuals such as Professor Woodrow Wilson rejected the Natural Law basis of our revolution and Declaration of Independence. Congress was too cumbersome, slow, restrictive and inattentive to the changing needs and demands of an emerging industrial...

Happy Anniversary! Today is the 100th Anniversary of the horrible 17th Amendment. In 1787-1788, Anti-Federalists warned that history’s lesson regarding republics would result in a despotic American government. Because republics rested on the will of the people, republics demanded among their communities a certain commonality of interests, traditions and morals. Absent commonality, society was certain to disintegrate into warring factions bent on besting and oppressing each other. Only an authoritarian government of force could keep the peace and control these hostile groups. Government could be one or a few men at the top lording over the many, or it could...

Oh Happy Day! Today is the hundredth anniversary of the 17th Amendment!Lets Make a Deal. When consumers purchase goods, they expect the products to last. Everyone expects some durability to their purchases. Legislation is also a product. Retail consumers of Congressional law can only catch a glimpse at the give and take of brief public hearings and meager open debate. What we do not see is more important. An incredible amount of personal and monetary capital goes into major legislation. Various interest groups invest tremendous sums in lobbyists, polling, media, etc to get their pet interests passed by Congress. Within...

Happy Anniversary! Today marks 100 years of the 17th Amendment.To Freepers, our statist government is a daily “fingernails across the chalkboard” experience. What will the likes of Senators Schumer and Durbin or Representatives Hoyer, Lee and Pelosi try to pull next? Why did our national government morph from one designed to protect our freedoms into one that promises increasing oppression? More to the point, why did the federal government generally remain within its Constitutional bounds prior to WWI and not thereafter? Thank the 17th Amendment. It fundamentally altered the Constitution; it pulled the keystone from the arch of our Framers’...

I should start by acknowledging that repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment is hardly a mainstream issue and certainly not anything likely to come about (which is an understatement). However, the fact that there are people out there seeking its repeal is sufficient to garner comment, especially since said persons were significant enough within factions of the Tea Party movement to actually get some Senate candidates to state that they were in support of the repeal. Further, every once in a while I will get a commenter who is favor a repeal, so it seems worth some discussion.The proximate cause of...

Original provisions of the Constitution intended to prevent Congress from enacting “dumb� laws were vitiated by ratification of the 17th Amendment. Before ratification of the 17th Amendment it’s unlikely that a Senate committee would have needed to raise the sort of question posed by Senator Coburn during confirmation hearings on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court. A Wall Street Journal editorial reports: If Congress passed a law saying Americans were required to eat three fruits and three vegetables a day, Mr. Coburn asked, would that be legitimate under the Commerce Clause? It sounds like a “dumb law,� Ms. Kagan...

Originally, although a Senator was elected by a state legislature, he was expected to represent the people of that state (rather than the legislature alone) in the Senate (See Federalist No. 62 through No.66).[Need quotation on talk to verify] Also it was believed that while an unqualified candidate might win a popular-vote majority through demagoguery or superficial qualities, the legislature, which could deliberate on its choice, and whose members had been selected by their constituents and had experience in politics, would be safe from such folly. Finally, election by the legislature was expected to insulate Senators from the distraction of...

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government announced that it would preempt all state jurisdiction over airport security. The federal government preempted state powers without regard to balancing federal and state responsibilities so that these responsibilities, and related costs, could be distributed across federal, state, and local governments. To carry out this preemption, the federal government recently reported that it will employ more than 47,000 federal recruits in the fight against terrorism as newly trained security screeners at 424 airports nationwide.

The 17th Amendment is stupid: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years…. But let me start at the beginning.  Article I § 3 cl. 1 of the Constitution originally established the election of Senators through the state legislatures.  The Federalist #62 laid out numerous arguments for the Constitutional framework of the Senate and its method of selection. The senatorial trust, which, requiring greater extent of information and stability of character, requires at the same time that the senator should have reached a period of...

Senator Reid Drops Schumer and Feinstein Gun Bills Written by Bob Adelmann In announcing on Monday afternoon that he was dropping Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill from consideration by the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, “Right now her amendment using the most optimistic numbers has less than 40 votes. That’s not 60. I have to get something on the floor so we can have votes on that issue…” He added: I’m not going to try to put something on the floor that won’t succeed. I want something that will succeed. I think the worst of all worlds...

Joe Biden summoned more than 200 Democratic insiders to the vice presidential residence Sunday night to chat about the 2012 triumph — but many walked away convinced his rising 2016 ambitions were the real intent of the long, intimate night. “I took a look at who was there,” said longtime New Hampshire state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, “and said to myself, ‘There’s no question he’s thinking about the future.’” He’s right. Biden, according to a number of advisers and Democrats who have spoken to him in recent months, wants to run, or at least be well positioned to run, if and...

Determined to neuter the grassroots and head off future insurgencies like those of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Ron Paul, Republican party bosses have pulled off an audacious coup, high-handedly turning the GOP into a much more top-down, centralized party. Boehner with gavel Yesterday, the Republican National Committee in Tampa adopted some rules changes that shift power from the state parties and the grassroots to the RNC and the GOP presidential nominee. Former Governor John Sununu of New Hampshire touted the new rules as providing “a strong governing framework” for the party over the next four years. But in fact...

Oh Really Mr. Reptilian Republican? By Karl Denninger (8/30/2012) Last night was a spooge-fest at the RNC; one of the more-common lies was Ryan's: “Before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation’s economic problems,” Ryan said. “And I’m going to level with you. We don’t have that much time. But if we are serious, and smart, and we lead, we can do this.” Oh really Paul? Paul Ryan, for those who have been living in a cave for the last couple of years, has put forward two separate "budgets" that are nothing...

A Miami-based plastic surgeon is under investigation after commissioning a song and music video that encourages plastic surgery for a character whose nose is described as a "beak like Jewcan Sam." Dr. Michael Salzhauer, 40, funded the video "Jewcan Sam" to "connect" to a younger audience. The creator of the song, a band known as The Groggers, describes itself as a "Jewish pop-punk band with a comic twist."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says Rush Limbaugh was wrong to call a college student a "slut" and "prostitute" in the debate over contraception coverage, and was right to apologize for the comments. Gingrich tells CNN's "State of the Union" that he's glad the conservative commentator issued the apology on Saturday and that it's time to move beyond the controversy. Gingrich says it's "silly" to suggest that Limbaugh speaks for the GOP. Gingrich contends the media are "trying desperately to protect" President Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney, whose campaign is preparing a multi-million dollar wave of negative advertising to persuade voters that Rick Santorum should not be president, says he is open to the possibility of choosing Santorum to be his running mate should Romney win the Republican nomination. Romney appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and was asked, "You and Rick Santorum, we haven't seen you go head-to-head yet…In the big picture, could you see a scenario where you two team up?" "Oh, I think it's always possible to have people come together in our party, whether it's Rick and I, or others in...

FEBRUARY 15, 2012 Romney Races to Defend Michigan State Up for Grabs as Santorum Surges BY JOSEPH B. WHITE AND NEIL KING JR. [Subscriber Content Preview] DETROIT—Amid signs Rick Santorum could win an upset victory in Michigan, Mitt Romney escalated his campaign to win the state's Republican primary by taking on the powerful auto union and reigniting the debate over the federal bailouts of two Detroit auto makers. Mr. Romney, writing in a Detroit News editorial-page column Tuesday, attacked as "crony capitalism on a grand scale" the Obama administration's $81 billion auto-industry bailout nearly three years ago. The salvo comes...

Time for Newt to Do the Honorable Thing By DAVID CATRON on 2.14.12 Gingrich can perform one last service for the GOP, drop out and endorse Santorum. About a week after his surprising victory in the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich did an interview with ABC News, most of which he devoted to complaints about the tactics Mitt Romney was using against him in Florida: "We have not been as effective in telling the truth as he has been in running ads… which have had to be pulled because they were so inaccurate." His most notable remark, however, was a...

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, by far the biggest financial backer of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, is preparing to open his wallet again. But this time, the casino magnate appears to have more than one agenda. In a bit of political chess, Mr. Adelson is ready to not only directly support the former House speaker in the Republican primary, but to use his cash to push Rick Santorum from his position atop the latest national polls, according to people to have discussed the matter with Mr. Adelson. Enlarge Image ADELSON ADELSON Las Vegas Review-Journal/Associated Press Sheldon Adelson, shown with his wife, Miriam,...

Breaking on Fox ...

U.S. won’t donate good food to North, says King June 04, 2011 Robert King, a U.S. special envoy who traveled to North Korea last week, said Wednesday that if the United States restarts food aid to the communist country, it’s not going to send good stuff that would be diverted to the military, including rice. “The kinds of food we provide would be the kinds of foods that are less desirable for the elite, for the military,” King told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday. “For example, we would not provide rice. We would focus on some kind of...

This morning Republicans are just beginning to assess the damage that former House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has done to the GOP budget plan currently before Congress. On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Gingrich denounced House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan's plan to restructure Medicare, saying, "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate."

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) -- Colin Powell told graduates of South Carolina's premier historically black university that they were graduating during a tumultuous time that saw a royal wedding, a pope's beatification and a U.S. military assault that killed Osama bin Laden, "the worst person on earth." But the former secretary of state and Joint Chiefs chairman told South Carolina State University's 400 graduates on Friday that he particularly enjoyed another recent event: "That was when President Obama took out his birth certificate and blew away Donald Trump and all the birthers!"

President Obama, who is under fire from Republicans over gasoline prices, will “outline his plan for America’s energy security” in a speech Wednesday and then tout advanced vehicles Friday at a UPS facility in Maryland, the White House said. Wednesday’s speech at Georgetown University will mark Obama's second high-profile remarks this month on energy. He addressed increased oil and gasoline prices at a March 11 press conference. The White House effort to seize control of the political narrative on energy comes amid constant GOP attacks on administration policies and unfolding Republican legislative plans.

A top House Democrat said Sunday that TV comic Stephen Colbert's in-character testimony at a congressional hearing Friday was "an embarrassment" to the comedian and wrong for the House. "His testimony was not appropriate. I think it was an embarrassment for Mr. Colbert more than the House," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, on "Fox News Sunday." Mr. Colbert testified to the House immigration subcommittee Friday on illegal immigrant agriculture workers, after he took the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" challenge and worked a day in the field picking crops. He testified that the work was...

<p>On Sunday April 18, Westboro Baptist Church came to Gainesville. One of their stops was a liberal "Open doors, open hearts, open minds," church near us, so we took part of our Sunday Service time and went as a church to stand with them.</p>

Congratulations, President Obama. It looks like you've won. Any meaningful questions about your performance in office, or the agenda you, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have been pushing are no longer part of the national discussion. The dust-up over Shirley Sherrod and inferences about her "reverse racism," the rank stupidity of the NAACP in condemning her and the Department of Agriculture firing her before uttering an ear shattering "Oops!" has effectively diverted everyone's attention from the really serious issues facing our country. Well played, sir. Sick, cynical, underhanded, true...but supremely effective. I'm particularly impressed by how quickly you got the...

President Barack Obama cited the influx of new technology as "putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy" in a commencement address to graduates at Virginia's Hampton University on Sunday. "You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said. "With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations; information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment. "All of this is not only...

When you have absolutely no argument to advance, what’s the easiest thing to do? Denounce your opponents as racist. Colbert King, who won a Pulitzer for “distinguished commentary” in 2003, really plumbs the depths with this column. The Tea Party crowd needn’t be your particular cup of Earl Grey to spot the intellectual bankruptcy of this kind of thing: Tea Party members, as with their forerunners who showed up at the University of Alabama and Central High School, behave as they do because they have been culturally conditioned to believe they are entitled to do whatever they want, and to...

http://gin-rummy.appspot.com/GinRummyApp/GinRummy.htmlThis is the link to the greatest online gin rummy java game you can find anywhere. Don't give up in our important struggle, but take a little time off now and then to recharge. Warning: this game is very addictive!!!

The Enquirer considered Lavely to be Tiger’s “damage-control attorneys” and weren’t surprised Steinberg dropped out and directed them there. Jay Lavely informed the tabloid that he’d get in touch with Woods. A day later, Lavely told Barry Levine that the story was not true, and that Tiger had possibly met Uchitel only one time at a nightclub. It echoed what she had told the paper only a couple of days earlier, leading executives at the Enquirer to believe she had tipped Woods about the tabloid’s interest. The past few weeks haven’t proven so tidy. Behind the scenes, those managing the...

Obama declares swine flu emergency 9 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has declared swine flu a "national emergency," the White House said Saturday, as the United States reels from millions of cases of infection and over 1,000 deaths.

NBC's coverage on the Miss Universe contestants. HULU still has commercials, but they are only one at a time!

In George Orwell’s allegorical novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the picture of “Big Brother” appears constantly in the adoring media. Perceived enemies are everywhere — supposedly plotting to undo the benevolent egalitarianism of Big Brother. Citizens assemble each morning to scream hatred for two minutes at pictures of the supposed public traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The “Ministry of Truth” swears that the former official Goldstein is responsible for everything that goes wrong in Oceania. In Orwell’s Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers “Newspeak” — recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth. “Doublethink” means you can believe at the same time...

LOUISVILLE, KY—A federal grand jury in Louisville returned a eleven count indictment on August 4, 2009, against Henry M. Humphrey and Kevin Harris, both of Louisville, Kentucky, on charges of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Wire Fraud, and Submitting a False Writing to the United States. Humphrey is charged with one additional count of soliciting and receiving a kickback. The eleven count indictment charges that between February 25, 1998, and November 2005, the defendants, Humphrey and Harris, conspired, confederated, and agreed with each other and others, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to improperly divert federal grant funds,...

N.Korean Missile Train on the Move A special North Korean train which transported a long-range rocket or intercontinental ballistic missile to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province in May recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong Province, a South Korean government source said Tuesday. South Korean and U.S. authorities believe the North may have transported a second intercontinental missile to the launch site. The North launched a long-range rocket from Musudan-ri on April 5, which had also been transported by special train. Seoul and Washington are wondering...

NEWTON, Iowa – Marking Earth Day with a pitch for his energy plan, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a "new era of energy exploration in America" and argued that his proposal would help the economy and the environment at once. "The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy — it's a choice between prosperity and decline," Obama said in his first post-election trip to Iowa, the state that launched him toward the White House. "The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that...

API has done the minimum it can to maintain interest in our blog in order to have the tape released by Fox News Network as stipulated in the agreement we can't prove to exist. Fox News Network seems to have delayed the airing of the fake tape intentionally, and yet they are unaware of the importance of the contents to API and the need to get the contents exposed to the American people before mom comes downstairs and takes away our computer privileges. API may decide to ignore the existing non-existing agreement that Fox News is ignoring if the engaging...

Melissa mayor mailing resolutions to fellow mayors to stop state from using gas tax funds for non-road projects BY DANNY GALLAGHER, McKinney Courier-Gazette Melissa Mayor David Dorman said he sits in his office everyday and watches as cars zoom down State Highway 121, a road that will soon start collecting tolls from drivers who use it to get to Dallas, McKinney, Frisco or the Dallas North Tollway and back again. Dorman said before that happens, he wants to know the roads his citizens and drivers are paying the state to use will be maintained and built with those funds. “I...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John Brennan, president of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

S.Korea Knew Its Rice Feeds N.Korean Military South Korean military authorities have known since 2003, when the Roh Moo-hyun administration was inaugurated, that North Korea has transported rice supplied by the South for humanitarian purposes to frontline units of the North Korean Army. The South Korean military has admitted it found no fewer than 200 South Korean rice sacks transported to North Korean Army units on about 10 occasions to the demilitarized zone including Gangwon Province between 2003 and recently. This is the first corroboration by the South Korean military of testimony by North Korean refugees that the food aid...

TexDOT: No Money to Build New Hghways Agency blames diversion of state gas tax money, curbs on privately funded toll roads By Jim Forsyth Friday, September 28, 2007 At a time the Texas Department of Transportation is defending spending thousands of dollars on a public relations campaign designed to convince you to support toll roads, the department says it has no money to pay for highway construction, 1200 WOAI's Robert Wood reports. "The bottom line is, we're running out of money very quickly," TexDOT's Chris Lippincott says. Lippincott blames decisions by state lawmakers to spend more than $1.5 billion in...

NEW YORK -- A plane headed for London has been diverted to John F. Kennedy airport in New York due to a suspicious passenger on Thursday, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman. A member of an American Airlines flight crew reported a suspicious passenger on flight 136, which took off from Los Angeles' LAX airport and was bound for London's Heathrow airport, according to TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley. McCauley said the flight was canceled and all passengers have been off-loaded in New York. A passenger boarded the plane after getting off an employee bus without proper identification, according to...

U.S. cites nuke-related entity in N. Korea's UNDP fund diversion (Kyodo) _ The United States suspects North Korea has diverted funds provided by the U.N. Development Program to an entity affiliated with a North Korean bank believed involved in Pyongyang's nuclear development, according to copies of U.S. letters to the UNDP obtained Friday. Commenting on the reported U.S. letters, the UNDP said it is "deeply committed to addressing immediately all allegations," but noted that Washington has yet to provide any documents to prove the alleged fund diversion. The entity in question, Zang Lok, is affiliated with Tanchon Commercial Bank, a...

Audit finds U.N. violates own rules in North Korea By Evelyn Leopold Fri Jun 1, 8:29 PM ET U.N. agencies violated their own rules in North Korea by employing national staff handpicked by the government and paying them in hard currency, according to a report by a U.N. board of auditors. But the report, an interim survey, did not find that large-scale U.N. funding had been diverted systematically. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who ordered the audit, said preliminary findings needed to be followed up with a visit to North Korea by the auditors, drawn from France, South Africa and the...