Free Republic

At press dinnerPalin "joked" person next to her on plane looked at picture of obama and chinese leader and asked which one is the communist 10 minutes ago from TwitterBerry lots of other jokes including: said if GOP ticket had won last year, she would be veep and Biden would be "selling his book, Going Rogaine." Palin takes a shot at steve schmidt, telling #gridiron: "if I ever need a bald campaign mgr,it appears all I am left w is james carville."

Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Binghamton University Professor Richard T. Antoun.

You have filled your administration with people who hold the most outrageous, insane, and frightening views on everything from our climate to our animals and worst of all, the sexuality of our children.... Quite possibly the worst of all is Kevin Jennings, your so-called Safe Schools Czar. That you have given this man the task of making our public schools “safe” for students to learn is stunning. Jennings has a view of “health” and “safety” for our kids that is shockingly corrupt and devoid of morality and you gave him the job. I am unutterably sick to death of the...

The Navy Seals facing court martial for the alleged abuse of a terror suspect arrested for killing four Americans face up to a year in military confinement, discharge for bad conduct, and forfeiture of two-thirds of their pay for a year, if convicted, according to defense attorneys. Further, their attorneys said that the possibilty that they would not be able to cross-examine their clients' accuser would be grounds for dismissing the case. The accuser, Ahmed Hashim Abed, is the alleged architect of the murder of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. The bodies of the four...

A new report is raising alarms that the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, a homosexual advocacy organization founded by Kevin Jennings, now head of the U.S. Office of Safe Schools for the Obama administration, is recommending XXX-rated sex writings for children as young as preschoolers . "We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren't merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between preschoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and...

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...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday abruptly altered the timing of his upcoming appearance at an international climate summit in Copenhagen, hoping to capitalize on steps by India and China and build a more meaningful political accord, a White House official told The Associated Press...

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is calling the leaked e-mails from climate scientists at a British university research unit a "theft" and "crime" that should be investigated, despite calls from Republicans to investigate the contents of the e-mails themselves, not the way they were leaked. "You call it Climate-gate. I call it E-mail-theft-gate," Boxer said at a hearing Wednesday on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which she chairs. She suggested that a criminal conspiracy might even be at play in bringing the once private e-mails to public light. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, ranking Republican on the panel and a...

Congressional Candidate Lieutenant Colonel Allen West

ABC didn't cover it. CBS didn't either. And NBC apparently wouldn't go near it. The network news broadcasts have ignored a growing scandal over evidence of a potential climate cover-up — and now they've even been scooped by the fake news at Comedy Central. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" produced its "reporting" on Climate-gate Tuesday night, when Stewart quipped, “Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” Stewart described leaked e-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia, including one referring to a researcher's "trick" to "hide the decline" in some...

A former education organizer at the scandal-scarred activist group ACORN fraudulently used Department of Education phone-bill accounts to cash in on more than $500,000 in lavish Verizon customer rewards, city investigators charged yesterday. Donnett Davis, 31, of Brooklyn, allegedly obtained spa retreats, Yankees and Mets tickets, $5,000 IBM gift certificates and gobs of other garish goodies from Verizon by registering 9,000 DOE telephone billing codes under an ACORN account in her name, probers said. Usage on those lines between February 2004 and August 2008 was then counted toward her Verizon small-business rewards program, through which Davis was able to redeem...

Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our armed services and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan — the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It is an honor for me to do so here — at West Point — where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security and to represent what is finest about our...

Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our armed services and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan -- the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It is an honor for me to do so here -- at West Point -- where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security, and to represent what is finest about our...

Matthews: "I didn't see a lot of warmth in that crowd."

Media: The shameless denial with which major newspapers and networks have treated "Climategate" layers even more scandal on top of the original one: Mainstream media now co-conspirators with scientific hacks and big government. The evolution of America's dominant media from guardians of our freedoms to enablers of government growth has been a decades-long story, their biases copiously chronicled. But their response to the scientific scandal of the century, since it broke a week and a half ago, bids to become known as history's great unmasking of these supposedly independent journalists. The scandal burst into the open when a hacker —...

So, fellow critics of Obama, what would we do instead? It is easy to harp, as Obama did in 2007-8, but hard to govern, as Obama learned in 2009. So for all the criticism, let us put up some sample proposals of our own. Ok, try the following. 1. Pay as you go, balanced budget—whatever you wish to call a return to fiscal sanity. Conservatives need to stop talking about tolerable deficits in terms of GDP; and liberals should cease the charade that trillion-plus annual borrowing is great stimulus. The psychological effect on the American people of paying down the...

Since the undercover ACORN videos from James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles first broke, the grand pooh-bahs of journalism have gone into self-absorbed philosopher mode. Rather than report on the ACORN corruption playing out before our eyes, “journalists” have tsk-tsked their way through thousands of words and yards of column inches making certain that everyone understands that what James and Hannah did IS…NOT…JOURNALISM. (As if that is the existential question to make sense of the ACORN videos.) Undercover videos and assuming fake identities are things real journalists do not do…except when they do. Below is a page from ACORN’s 2005 Annual...

Dear Pro-life Friend: The next week will be a grueling and, we pray, critical effort in this life and death struggle. It is late Saturday night; I am here in Southwest Nebraska. I spoke for a few moments at a vigil Mass here, begging people to contact their Senators. I speak 3 times in the morning. Then, we leave late Sunday for an eight-city, fourteen-event effort to mobilize people against this damnable "health care" legislation. I beg you for your prayers with all my heart. If you are ANYWHERE NEAR where we will be, please join us! If you know...

There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair [Rajendra Pachauri] said today. (snip) Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered. "The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.

Tiger: I Need a 'Kobe Special' Posted Nov 29th 2009 12:15AM by TMZ Staff Tiger Woods had a "Kobe Special" on his brain hours after what looks like a domestic dispute with his wife, Elin Nordegren -- this according to someone who spoke with Tiger on Friday. During the phone conversation on Friday, Tiger told his friend, "I have to run to Zales to get a 'Kobe Special.'" The person on the other end of the phone asked Tiger what a "Kobe Special" was. The reply -- "A house on a finger." During the conversation, Tiger said his wife had...

Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers this morning, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health. Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protests of prosecutors. "This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said Sunday night when informed that Clemmons was being sought in connection to the killings. Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions...

<p>Why wouldn’t the Post-American President allow this? After all, he already plans to try the CIA members who interrogated jihadis at Gitmo, and Navy Seals who captured a top jihadist. Why should he have any problem with this?</p> <p>Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed “great regret” in August that the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has fueled speculation that the Obama administration may reverse another Bush policy and sign up for what could lead to the trial of Americans for war crimes in The Hague.</p>

PARKLAND, Wash. - Four Lakewood Police officers were shot and killed Sunday morning in what authorities called a targeted ambush at a coffee shop. Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says the officers - four male and one female - were in full uniform and wearing bulletproof vests, sitting in Forza coffee shop near 116th Street and Steele Street on the east side of the Air Force base at about 8:30 a.m. Troyer says the officers were preparing for their shift when a suspect or suspects "walked in with a handgun, opened fire multiple times and then fled the scene,"...

American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes U.S. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation. American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have...

I am a lawyer of thirty years with an engineering degree....I don't have a lock on logic, but this global warming email disclosure, and now the incredible loss of raw data relating to science about the alleged destruction of the earth.... should be one of the biggest stories of the last 100 years, bigger than the Pentagon Papers or Watergate or any other...because the entire world was being manipulated into action based on the premise that the world might come to an end on science that was supposed to be unimpeachable........ Trillions are to be spent that is all based...

US Shoppers Spent Less Over Black Friday: NRF US, RETAIL, ECONOMY, SHOPPERS, SHOPPING, BLACK FRIDAY, TARGET, WAL-MART, GAP, SAKS Reuters | 29 Nov 2009 | 03:41 PM ET American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes U.S. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation. While traffic to stores and retail...

Apparently, Arnold Schwarzenegger owes the IRS a total of over $79K from 2004 and 2005.

AP story. Link only.

Professional golfer Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a car accident outside his Isleworth home early this morning. Professional golfer Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a car accident early this morning, the Florida Highway Patrol just reported. Woods, 33, pulled out of his driveway in the Isleworth community about 2:25 a.m. when he struck a fire hydrant, and then drove into a tree at his neighbor's property, FHP reported. Alcohol is not related to the accident, FHP said. Woods was transported to Health Central Hospital in Ocoee in serious condition, FHP said. No other information about his condition has...

When it comes to the problems facing this country, an old slogan comes to mind: “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” High unemployment, the recession, and a terrorist resurgence in Afghanistan are bad enough. But there are a number of problems on the horizon that could dwarf President Obama’s first-year trials. Why the pessimism? In short, we are doing nothing to prepare for the crises to come. A global recession has led to low oil prices. Yet in this window of opportunity, America has not decreased its foreign-oil dependence. We are not encouraging domestic exploration. And we are still ambivalent on...

Washington D.C. October 3, 1863 By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude...

When it comes to the problems facing this country, an old slogan comes to mind: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." High unemployment, the recession and a terrorist resurgence in Afghanistan are bad enough. But there are a number of problems on the horizon that could dwarf President Obama's first-year trials. Why the pessimism? In short, we are doing nothing to prepare for the crises to come. A global recession has led to low oil prices. Yet in this window of opportunity, America has not decreased its foreign-oil dependence. We are not encouraging domestic exploration. And we are still ambivalent on...

Watch this Jib-Jab-style send-up of Michael Mann and climate-change-fraud at the CRU, then send the link to everyone you know. Mash here

The queen of daytime will interview the president of the country during an ABC holiday special that brings together Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama.

The BBC has discovered that hundreds of millions of pounds promised to developing countries to help them tackle climate change cannot be accounted for.

The Obama administration has decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy. "We decided that our land mine policy remains in effect," he said. More than 150 countries have agreed to the Mine Ban Treaty's provisions to end the production, use, stockpiling and trade in mines. Besides the United States, holdouts include: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Russia. Human rights groups had expressed hopes that the Obama administration would sign the treaty. Stephen Goose, the director...

(picture excerpted due to Free Republic rules...Getty Images are banned) Exclusive: Angelina Jolie Not a Fan of Obama Tuesday – November 24, 2009 – 1:07pm Barack Obama does not have Angelina Jolie's seal of approval."She hates him," a source close to the U.N. goodwill ambassador, 34, tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on newsstands now). See Angelina Jolie's early modeling shots!  "She's into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise," adds the source. See how the Jolie-Pitt kids have grownBut don't expect to see...

Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan. James Kirkup, Thomas Harding and Toby Harnden 24 Nov 2009 The Defence Secretary's blunt remarks about the US threaten to strain further a transatlantic relationship. Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban. A “period of hiatus” in Washington - and a lack of clear direction - had made it...

Former populist CNN anchor Lou Dobbs said Monday he isn't ruling out a presidential run. Dobbs, who resigned from CNN in November after nearly three decades with the network, suggested in a radio interview with WTOP in Washington, D.C., that he's eyeing a future in politics. "What's so crazy about that?" Dobbs quipped when asked about a possible presidential run. "It's one of the discussions that we're having."

Cardinal DiNardo gave the keynote at today’s session of the National Catholic Youth Conference in Kansas City, while Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph Naumann led Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction at Sprint Center. Kansas City – St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn then led 22,000 High School students through his See City from Sprint Center to the Kansas City Convention Center. At some point, I should probably explain why there is an Archbishop of Kansas City who isn’t the Bishop of Kansas City. Here are some pics – story later – Be sure to see the last pic....

Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then. As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before. And it's not just the frozen parts of the world that have felt the heat in the dozen years...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday. The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family. "The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family."The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the...

Martha Stewart on Friday said former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is "a dangerous person," and "anyone like that in government is a real problem." Speaking with HLN's "Showbiz Tonight" producer Jenny D'Attoma, Stewart also said Palin is "very boring" and "confused." Ironically, when asked if she has seen any of Palin's recent interviews, Stewart replied without recognizing the hypocrisy, "I wouldn't watch her if you paid me" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t

Al Gore's award-winning global warming film "An Inconvenient Truth," socked two years ago by a British court ruling that found several errors, is facing additional scrutiny with the release of a new documentary that seeks to rebut many of Gore's claims. In Gore's film, directed by Davis Guggenheim and released in 2006, the former vice president argues that humans are causing climate change, a problem he says is the biggest moral challenge facing the globe. If humans don't act to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, Gore contends, the deaths caused by climate change will double in 25 years to...

Worried about trying the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists and four of his close associates in a civilian courtroom? Don't be, says our president. He knows just how the trial will turn out -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed will be convicted and executed. We have his word on it. He makes the trial sound like just a formality. And here some of us thought trials didn't have a predetermined outcome, not in America. Naive us.

There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee said Friday. The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss...

The recent hacking of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) computer system has led to the release of hundreds, if not thousands, of e-mails which — if real — reveal the tactics and motivations of some of the top Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists. I hesitate to name names, but there are several websites now buzzing with all of the details and sample e-mails. The e-mails I have seen appear genuine, with obscure scientific details and language that would take considerable effort to create as part of a hoax. A few of the sites covering...

"He only won by five votes in the House, and this bill wasn't even anything to write home about," Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said.

Have a close look at the screencap [larger image after the jump]. Notice what MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell is holding in her left hand? Those are notes, with factoids from the 2008 presidential campaign. She's reading from them to challenge a Sarah Palin supporter who was waiting in line at the book signing yesterday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We all remember how back during the '08 campaign, MSM reporters would challenge people attending Obama rallies with uncomfortable truths about their candidate, along the lines "would you still support him if you knew he had the most liberal voting record in the...