Free Republic

Over ONE MILLION copies sold! On the NYTimes Bestseller List for 19 weeks, 12 weeks at #1!Buy it… read it… live it!“Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

Under fire for mismanaging its vehicle fleet, Caltrans was rapped anew on Monday for grossly overstating the number of jobs it created or preserved with federal stimulus money. The criticism came from state Auditor Elaine Howle, who revealed the department's inflated numbers in a report. In October, Caltrans told the federal government that it created or preserved 1,590 jobs with $26.7 million the department received earlier this year under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The stimulus bill requires all recipients of federal money to file quarterly job updates, reporting numbers of jobs created or saved by projects. Howle's auditors...

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Ah yes... a new trend has begun. Other Senators are figuring out they toed the party line for too easy a price, and there's at least three that have approached Sen. Ben Nelson... giving him a nod of thanks for his lead for sweetheart deals. Nelson has refused to identify the Senators by name, or by party. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, after securing a sweetheart deal for his state as part of the health insurance reform bill, said Tuesday that three other senators have told him they want to bargain for the same kind of special treatment. "Three senators came...

OTTAWA -- Canada could lose business to the United States if the two countries don't "harmonize" their climate-change plans, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper, arguing that Canada has no choice but to follow the U.S. lead because of the integrated nature of the North American economy. "We've seen in the past decade and a half that if the Americans don't take realistic actions on emissions, it's very difficult for Canada to do much, because quite frankly, factories and economic activity will simply relocate south of the border if the Americans are not harmonized with us," the prime minister said this...

Former DA Earle running for Lt. Gov. By Kate Alexander | Friday, December 18, 2009, 06:36 PM Former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is running for lieutenant governor of Texas. Earle, who retired last year after more than three decades as district attorney, filed paperwork with the Texas Democratic Party late Friday to seek the party’s nomination for the statewide office. The winner of the Democratic primary in March will probably face the Republican incumbent David Dewhurst next fall. At this point, Earle is the sole filer for the party’s nomination, but Austin deli owner Marc Katz is...

Barack Obama gave himself a B+ on Oprah Winfrey’s White House Christmas Special on ABC, but the American public is far less generous. The latest influential Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of likely US voters gives Obama a thumping 56 percent disapproval rating – an F grade by any measure. 46 percent strongly disapprove of the president’s job performance, while just 25 percent strongly approve. That’s a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 percentage points, a staggering figure for a president just 11 months into his term of office. These are historically low approval ratings for a US president, that...

Turns out Harry Reid just kind of forced the money into his hands, you see. “Three senators came up to me just now on the (Senate) floor, and said, ‘Now we understand what you did. We’ll be seeking this funding too‘,� Nelson said. But the Democratic senator, who has faced a heap of criticism for appearing to trade his vote on health care for millions in federal Medicaid money, said he’s considering asking that the Nebraska deal be stripped from the bill. Though he defended the exemption as a “fair deal,� he said he never asked for the full federal...

Chris Matthews interviewing socialist Bernie Sanders, (at 49 seconds)"To reach back to one of our heros from the past, from the 60's, Saul Alinsky once said..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCryNzrcxWY

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday set a Christmas Eve vote on final congressional approval of a bill to provide a two-month increase in the federal debt limit. The measure, passed last week by the House of Representatives, would increase the debt limit, now at $12.1 trillion, by $290 billion. Senate Democrats may approve the measure largely by themselves because most, if not all, Republicans are expected to vote against it, Republican aides said. Democrats control the Senate, 60-40.

Democrats’ Health Bill Passes Key Senate Vote Republicans pledge to fight on despite losing early Monday WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats’ health care overhaul passed a key test in a party-line vote early Monday, in a dramatic defeat for Republicans that put the legislation on track for Christmas-week passage. In the run-up to the vote, the escalation in rhetoric was remarkable on both sides of an issue that has divided the two political parties for months. "This process is not legislation. This process is corruption," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., referring to the last-minute flurry of dealmaking that enabled Majority Leader...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) — so fond of accusing the Obama administration of foisting socialism on an unwilling America — has apparently been the recipient of about a quarter of million bucks in government handouts. Liberal site Truthdig links to an Environmental Working Group analysis of federal agricultural subsidies and found that the Bachmann family farm, managed by her father-in-law until his recent death, received $251,000 in farm payments between 1995 and 2006. Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate her stake in the Wisconsin farm is worth up to $250,000. Her income from the farm has grown from $2,000 a year...

On Today's Show... December 22, 2009   On the Rushwire: Adweek Names Rush Limbaugh "Radio Personality of the Decade"    Don't Be Polite or Non-Ideological: Fight This Un-American Legislation! » Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard:  It Could Still Go Down   "This bill will destroy the country as you and I know it.  It will destroy the greatest health care system in the world, forever changing the relationship that we have with our doctors because the government's going to be a very powerful middleman." -Rush (Rush 24/7 Members: Listen)   Mass Firings? Withholding Taxes? A Revolution Percolates (Rush 24/7...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17

Friend,   Yesterday we were able to win with 89% of the vote and I'm so proud of you and the support you have given this campaign.  The Brown Brigade has grown to over 1,875 activists with 176 local Brigades organized to help us Get Out The Vote on January 19.   I started the day yesterday like any other day by taking out the garbage and doing some chores around the house.          However, I ended the day with you and other energized supporters that want to stop the 'bailout culture' and clean up Washington from...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. The emails show that Stupak — who has so far remained silent on language accepted by Senator Ben Nelson (D. Neb.) and faces intense pressure from the White House to accept it — is already working behind the scenes to oppose the compromise. They also demonstrate a previously unseen...

WASHINGTON -- Republicans on Monday slammed the provisions Democrats inserted in their far-reaching health-care overhaul bill at the last minute to win over individual senators. With Senate action now almost certain by Christmas, a battle to shape perceptions of the legislation is heating up, and Republicans are wasting no time attacking it as sullied by backroom deals. "If this bill cannot pass without the carve-outs and the special deals, what other evidence could we possibly need that this bill is bad policy?" said Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.).

2010 is going to be an amazing year for political junkies, but I think one thing everyone agrees on is that the March 2 Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas is going to be one for the ages. That's the one where Gov. Rick Perry is being challenged by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. So much ink has been spilled on this race, none better I thought than the Dec. 6 article in the New York Times Magazine by Robert Draper, who calls the matchup a great example of the GOP's "internal discontents": The issues and cultural references in the race are...

Senators Challenge Health Care Section Making Death Panels Permanent Washington, DC -- Two pro-life senators plan to raise a constitutional challenge to a section of the Senate health care bill that makes the infamous "death panels" permanent. They say it is unconstitutional to pass a law that prevents Congress from overturning the law at a later point. http://www.LifeNews.com/bio3022.html

The Unemployment rate is up over 10% and African Americans are 6% higher than the national average. Does our government play a historic role in disenfranchising Blacks in America? Since Obama is an African American/Blackman should he be more informed and concerned with the specific needs of Black people in this country? I often ask people who say Blacks shouldn’t get special treatment, but how many slaves volunteered to come to America and build it for free? Like the President, I have studied Malcolm X intensely and I grew up admiring him as a youth. I studied all of his...

Promising change after eight George Bush and Republican dominated years, Barack Obama won the most sweeping non-incumbent victory in over 50 years along with congressional Democrats gaining large House and Senate majorities. In addition, at 56.8%, voter turnout was the highest since Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war and his "Southern" and "law and order" strategies beat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace in 1968. On election night, the mood celebrated hope for progressive change, an end to imperial wars, and a new day for America. When word came around 10PM, expectant thousands in Chicago's Grant Park...

My Fellow Americans, When King George III of The British Empire had concluded his French and Indian war in 1763 he lacked to funds to pay for the costly event. His answer was to impose tax after tax on the colonies of America. He started confiscating their monies by taxing every activity of life and creating government subsidized monopolies on everything from courier services to tea. The King wanted to control every aspect of American life and bring as much money into the government coffers as possible. We are, as I write this post, a mere six hours away from...

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 "Democrats Ensure America Will No Longer Be the Last Best Hope of Earth" by Dennis Prager SNIPPET: "As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America's standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun." SNIPPET: "Just as the left has waged war on America's Judeo-Christian roots, it has waged war on individual liberty and responsibility." SNIPPET: "Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are right about one thing -- they are indeed making history. But...

Rep. Stupak: White House Pressured Me to Keep Quiet on Abortion Language in Senate Health Bill Tuesday, December 22, 2009 By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said the White House and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives have been pressuring him not to speak out on the "compromise" abortion language in the Senate version of the health care bill. “They think I shouldn’t be expressing my views on this bill until they get a chance to try to sell me the language,” Stupak told CNSNews.com in an interview on Tuesday. “Well, I don’t...

The world's political leaders, not least President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in a state of severe, almost clinical, denial. While acknowledging that the outcome of the United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen fell short of their demand for a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable global agreement on emissions reductions by developed and developing countries alike, they insist that what has been achieved is a breakthrough and a decisive step forward. Just one more heave, just one more venue for the great climate-change traveling circus—Mexico City next year—and the job will be done. Or so we are...

This is so potentially great, even greater than we thought it could be. For a while, ex-Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle talked about running for governor. That could have led to a November battle between Democrat Earle and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, now running against Gov. Rick Perry in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Earle v. Hutchison would have been a rematch of the battle previously known as The State of Texas v. Hutchison, a long-ago criminal case in which Earle was The State of Texas and he wanted to send Hutchison to prison for up to 51 years. The...

Over ONE MILLION copies sold! On the NYTimes Bestseller List for 19 weeks, 12 weeks at #1!Buy it… read it… live it!“Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

Guiliani will NOT run for Senate this year. Like him or not, he was best chance for a MORE CONSERVATIVE candidate. Don't waste time with the "not Conservative enough" mantra. He was better than anyone else with a chance to get elected.

Politics: Sen. Mary Landrieu was the new "Louisiana Purchase." Sen. Ben Nelson got the federal government to pick up his state's future Medicaid tab. Maybe we should just put Senate votes up on eBay. Nelson, the 60th vote in the middle-of-the-night Senate party line vote on health care reform, will go down in American political history as the inventor of the permanent earmark. His seemingly principled stand against including federal funding for

Christmas approaches. Families gather. For some, there is a whirl of presents to wrap, cards to address, meals to cook. For many on this Christmas, times are hard, and it's worth recalling what the real story is about. The real story is not about Santa Claus, it's about Jesus the Christ. His birth is the real reason for the season. The real story is about two parents, ethnic minorities in the Roman Empire, fleeing for their lives, later to become immigrants in Egypt, traveling to make the census count or be punished. They had no place to stay. The innkeeper...

Paul Spokesman Resigns Amid Controversy By John McArdle | December 17, 2009 11:20 PM The campaign spokesman forKentucky Senate candiate Rand Paul reportedly resigned Thursday evening amid a controversy over a social networking Web page that he maintained. Liberal blogs first posted allegations that Christopher Hightower had racist remarks and pictures on his MySpace.com Web page. After Hightower originally disavowed any connection to the Web page Paul's campaing manager annouced hours later that Hightower had stepped down from Paul's campaign. The controversy has the potential to derail the momentum Paul had been gaining from his strong polling numbers and his...

Griffith's Jump to GOP Hasn't Deterred Primary Challengers, Tea Party CriticsOn Tuesday morning, Politico broke the news that Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.) was switching from the Democratic Party to the GOP. For Les Phillip — a Tea Party activist who’d been waging a Republican campaign for Griffith’s seat since August — it was “manna from heaven.”“This is why we do the things we do,” Phillip told TWI. “This gives us a chance to judge his entire record. If he wants to play on this side of the hall, our voters are very aware of the issues and we hold everyone...

...Here is a look at some of the key components...For the first time ever, Americans would be required to carry health insurance. Both bills would require people to do so, and provide subsidies to low- and middle-income families who cannot afford it. Under the Senate plan, families who make less than $88,200 would be eligible for Medicaid. There are also sweet deals...Nebraska, the state of once-skeptical Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, would be exempt from paying for Medicaid's expansion, a gift worth $100 million, under the Senate plan. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., also negotiated $600 million in additional Medicaid benefits for...

If you are under 30, you really need to read this column and pass it on to your friends. Your elected officials are dooming you to a new sort of bondage, a form of 21st Century slavery, if you will. First, some background. On October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln, then a former one-term Congressman, gave a three hour speech in Peoria, Illinois in which he decried the extension of slavery into the territories. The Republican Party was barely three months old. Lincoln warned that slavery was a “monstrous injustice” based on the raw principle of “self-interest” at odds with the...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 22, 2009 CONTACT: J.P. Duffy, (866) FRC-NEWS Senator Landrieu Closes Office: Constituents Turned Away at the Door, Callers Reach Only Busy Signals December 22, 2009 FRC's Tony Perkins Calls Closure the "Height of Arrogance" Baton Rouge, LA - This afternoon, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins attempted to deliver a letter to Senator Mary Landrieu's Baton Rouge office only to be told by a federal marshal that her offices were "closed for the holidays." Over 150 concerned citizens joined Perkins at a rally in front of Senator Landrieu's office to urge the Senator to oppose the...

A truly sad story about a 23-year-old Panama City man dying while being subdued by Bay County sheriff’s deputies has reawakened the debate about the legalization of marijuana. On December 11, 2009, Andrew Grande choked on a plastic bag full of marijuana as police attempted to arrest him on a violence charge. A video shows police valiantly trying to save his life once it became apparent that he was having difficulty breathing. Two talk show hosts in Panama City have been discussing the case in the early morning hours — and revealing a divide on the right. Burnie Thompson of...

Jerry Parks, the Clinton security aide in Arkansas, known to have been keeping a dossier on Clinton, is gunned down two months after Foster’s death in his car outside of Little Rock. Parks is shot through the rear window of his car and shot three more times, thru the side window, with a 9mm pistol.Read the story here

Should the media turn at least one glazed eye toward the checkered trail of Obama's highly suspicious connection to multiple social security numbers? I dunno, maybe ask a question or two?

Pelosi takes on Palin over 'death panel' claim By Michael O'Brien - 12/22/09 01:18 PM ET House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) called out former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) for having made the "lie of the year" for claiming the healthcare bill would set up "death panels." Pelosi's office circulated a special edition of its "mythbuster" email to reporters on Tuesday touting PolitiFact's determination that Palin's claim about death panels was their "lie of the year." Palin had claimed that seniors and the disabled would "have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based...

Please call, fax or email your Senator. Also send a message of support to Coburn. During the debate on Obamacare last week, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) forced the reading of an amendment offered by Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to add a single payer system to the Obamacare bill. The reading was expected to take 12 hours. But after only 3 hours, Democrats in the Senate used a parliamentary maneuver to withdraw the amendment. Coburn and other Republicans complained about the move, because the Senate rules don’t seem to allow the withdrawal of an amendment while it’s being read....

Republican candidates now have an eight-point lead over Democrats, their biggest lead of the year, in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for GOP candidates held steady over the past week, but support for Democrats slipped by a point. Perhaps this helps to explain why Parker Griffith, a freshman congressman from northern Alabama, is expected to announce today that he is switching parties. Elected as a Democrat, he is...

At Hot Air, Captain Ed has a tape of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discussing how the so-called "abortion premium" in the Senate health care reform bill will work. Is she suggesting that everyone will have to pay an abortion premium, and that accounting tricks will be used just to make it look like you're not forced to pay for abortions? SEBELIUS: That would be an accounting procedure, but everybody in the exchange would do the same thing, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium...

"I worked with him on many issues across party lines. There has never a major reform accomplished in the history of this country that hasn't been bipartisan, and he certainly, uh...all of the negotiations and efforts that I made with him, we never engaged in this kind of unsavory process of offering people different deals, which in the end cost people from other states lots of money and put burdens on them."

John McCain is furious and naming names, quotes a rude remark from that sorry corrupt person from Louisiana telling him, too bad YOU lost the election, the democrats and Obama are just doing what the American people voted them to do...other Republicans full of righteous indignation. For what it's worth. Is it just too late to do anything about this quagmire of a travesty??

Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL R-AL) might be facing some opposition on right after his party switch, but he is being welcomed to the GOP by one top name: Sarah Palin. Palin posted this on her Twitter account: "Congratulations Alabama!And all Americans concerned about Capitol Hill's current agenda;Rep Parker Griffith just did the right thing.Welcome" Other big right-wing names, such as the Club For Growth and Erick Erickson, are already laying the groundwork for a primary challenge against Griffith by what they would think of as a truly loyal conservative. But so far at least, Palin is greeting the new GOP...

Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa. Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Someone has put a lot of thought into a welcome sign that may surprise you, it's in front of a homeless camp off I-25 in Colorado Springs. Its message, "Welcome to Obamaville, Colorado's fastest growing community." Despite repeated calls no one could answer the question, who put up the sign? To some homeless the sign's message says enough. Mark Limonez, a homeless man living in "tent city", says the sign doesn't make him feel good about trying to get back on his feet. "Guys are trying to work but there's not enough work out there,...