Free Republic

"Leaders of high moral character are indispensable in the preservation of liberty. But in a democracy, is not the character of its leaders essentially a reflection of the character of its people? Leaders are elected by the people, albeit through an imperfect system that often obfuscates candidates' character, ability, and intent. Nevertheless, if the people elect leaders who lack the character to apply self-restraint, then the people are ultimately responsible for the results. To borrow a phrase from the technical world: "garbage in, garbage out." When candidates lacking character are elected, the results are predictable. The marble halls of Washington,...

<p>WASHINGTON — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver wanted people to stop complaining for a day and count their blessings.</p> <p>What he got, however, was just more complaints.</p> <p>Indeed, the Missouri Democrat was on the receiving end this week of an angry torrent of ill will from conservative Web sites about him and about Congress.</p>

A Zogby Poll this week illustrates the stark choice facing Senate Democrats as they have to decide whether or not to vote for ObamaCare. The poll shows that Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, high up on the list of vulnerable Senate Democrats seeking reelection in 2010, literally faces a choice between being reelected and voting for the bill. The Zogby Poll shows Arkansans opposed to the Obama/Reid bill by 28-64, with 50 percent “strongly opposed” to the legislation. To swim in the face of such a current of public opinion is risky business for a U.S. senator. Lincoln’s most likely Republican...

Sarah Palin has breathed some life into the word "lamestream". We've been using "lamestream" here at Free Republic for quite some time. I looked up the word in the Urban Dictionary and found Sarahs use of the word was not defined. So I sent in this definition: "An insult directed at the dominant commercial news services for bias in covering politics". They turned it down!

According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN’s voter registration work in the state. “U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio’s secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”

Here is video of GOP Sen. Jon Kyl last night telling Jon Scott that if the Cloture vote today on the Senate Health Bill passes, it will be very difficult to stop it. Kyl said 97-98% of bills that pass a cloture vote are later passed by the Senate. It will most certainly be so in the case of the Senate Health Bill. UPDATE: It does appear there will have to be a second cloture vote before final passage. So there is still some hope to prevent a bill from passing if all the Republicans hold firm and Joe Lieberman...

I just got a new lap top and all of the FR posts are in Pacific time. How do I change it to East coast time? I'm going to shower and eat cheese and will be right back.

What is it with the interest in beauty pageant contestants and sex tapes? In addition to the Carrie Prejean tape, there is a new scandal, involving a Miss Universe contestant in a 3-way hard core tape. As this is allegedly a legal column, that brings us to the legal issue – what does it take to get fired from a pageant for a morals clause? When does something in your private life cost you a job dealing with the public?

Once again, for about the 3rd or 4th year in a row, I'm posting instructions on how to properly deep fry a turkey. This year, however, although I will be deep frying one, I won't be eating it. The reason? Last week on Thursday I suffered a mild stroke and the doc says no more fried stuff (although I MAY sneak a bite or two). After a night in the emergency room and 4 days eating hospital food, I have no desire to go back. The good news is I've recovered almost 100% use of my left leg and my...

The Berlin Wall was a world away from the apartheid wall built by Israel around Palestinian population centers, the U.S./South Korean military wall that separates family members from North Korea, or the expanded U.S. wall against immigrants on the border with Mexico. What is the difference? Those walls are aimed at repressing the workers and oppressed. The Berlin Wall, by contrast, was built in defense of the workers and oppressed.

If you thought your boss was tough, try working at the Paradou restaurant. The owner of the Meatpacking District bistro made George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump look like pussycats, when he sent a profanity-laden e-mail memo to his staff demanding they get customers' e-mail addresses or be fired. "WHAT THE F - - - IS WRONG WITH YOU A - -HOLES?!?!?!" wrote Paradou owner Vadim Ponorovsky. "How many times do we have to tell you how important it is that you collect emails. "Everytime we have a slow night and you make no money and you sit there bitching about...

LOWELL — A Methuen teen, who police said took off after she hit a 12-year-old boy in a Lowell crosswalk, leaving him for dead, then tried to cover up the accident, could face up to two years in jail. Police say Michelle P. Medeiros, 17, of 14 Bernard Lane, Methuen, never stopped after hitting the boy Wednesday afternoon. Instead, she drove to a Lawrence hair salon, got her hair done and then called police to report her blue Acura had been vandalized. "This is not a case of the operator having a consciousness of guilt and coming forward," Lowell police...

Update by Daniel: From ABC's "20/20" tonight:

My husband has been battling lung infections for two months. He is in the hospital with pneumonia right now. Part of his left lung is blocked. He is better now than he was this morning. Please pray for him.

Wouldn’t it be great if our first black president took the high road and instead of taking from those who have worked hard to succeed and giving it to others who have made life choices that were less than responsible - if he were to stand-up and tell the minorities and the poor to follow in his foot-steps. He should be an inspiration to others. He should tell them how he broke the chains of poverty and guide them through "change". He could relate to the millions who grew up without a dad and talk to them about "change". He...

Now Hampshire has this breaking news— Republican activist and free market think-tanker Grant Bosse formally declared his candidacy today in New Hampshire’s 00th Congressional District after news that the Obama administration has attributed a majority of the state’s stimulus jobs to that non-existent district.

PHOENIX — A 2-year-old boy dragged a 1-year-old Arizona girl Friday from a house fire that killed her mother and injured two other adults, authorities said. Fire crews responding to the fire in the Pinal County community of Maricopa south of Phoenix found the girl's mother, 22-year-old Michelle Mariano, lying near a doorway of the mobile home, Maricopa Fire Department spokesman Brad Pitassi said. She was identified by Sheriff's spokeswoman Lt. Tamatha Villar. Villar said officials believe the boy is the girl's brother but haven't confirmed that. Michelle Mariano's 28-year-old sister, Marion Mariano, was also severely burned, authorities said, and...

I just found out today there is a 9/11 Monument in NJ that was a gift from the Russians. Has anyone in NY or NJ been to this? This sure didn't get a lot of coverage. http://www.911monument.com/index.html

CABLE NEWS RACE NOV. 19, 2009 FOXNEWS O'REILLY/PALIN 4,120,000 FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,871,000 FOXNEWS BECK 2,730,000 FOXNEWS BAIER 2,359,000 FOXNEWS GRETA 2,113,000 FOXNEWS SHEP 2,078,000 MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,188,000 CNNHN GRACE 1,018,000 CNN KING 980,000 MSNBC MADDOW 877,000 MSNBC HARDBALL 597,000 CNN COOPER 585,000

The 30-year-old officer was gunned down at his home early Thursday morning. Police are saying the crime was a random act. The officer's wife, mother and two very young children were in the home at the time of the shooting. Metro is firming up the burial plans for the officer but expects the funeral to take place next Tuesday or Wednesday.

"It would be nice to think of Glenn Beck just as a joke." Here is video of Arianna Huffington telling Keith Olbermann that Glenn Beck should be exempted from free speech. Huffington said about Glenn Beck, "there is a good reason why we have an exemption to the free speech protected by the first amendment, when we say that you can't shout fire in a crowded theater, and he's doing that every night, he's basically using images of violence every night." Huffington said Glenn Beck and Fox News are "morally liable" if "any violence ensues from what he says." Read...

Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s not that the retailers are closed-minded. It’s their customers who are closed-minded. Well, okay. Some of the retailers are closed-minded too. “Our customers are thinking people,” said Nathan Embretson, a bookseller at Pendragon Books in Oakland. “They’re not into reading drivel.” There’s not a single copy on the shelf. Embretson said no one has asked for it except for one guy, who was kidding. “He said he wanted to look at it but he also said he didn’t really want to read it,” Embretson said. “Anyway, he certainly didn’t want to buy it. I think...

Here is video of Fox Business anchor Cody Willard attacking Sarah Palin. Cody Willard said "Sarah Palin makes me sick, she is one of the biggest hypocrites on the planet, she is not a conservative because when she was running with John McCain she stopped and lobbied for a trillion dollar Wall Street bailout." Willard said middle America "will reject her when that comes to light."

Most Powerful Man On Planet Bows To Table

It’s safe to say that Inhofe does not have much respect for the far left California senator especially after she broke senate rules and passed her junk science bill out of committee without a single Republican present. Boxer’s cap and tax bill to fight non-existent global warming was shelved until next year it was reported this week. But, that may be too late for the far left. Today there are damning reports that “the conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming junk science (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed.”

Can this possibly be true? An anti-Obama website, The Obama File, posts a photograph purporting to show President Obama putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the Russian national anthem, during his visit to Moscow. How can it possibly be a genuine photograph, when we know that the President didn't put his hand over his heart during the playing of the American national anthem, as demonstrated in this now-infamous photograph taken during the campaign?

Excerpt: Friend -- Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn. It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term "Death Panels" -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists.

This will show how weak our president is ..COMPARE THE QUOTES

Highlights of Tokyo Speech: "We seek this deeper and broader engagement because we know our collective future depends on it." "We simply cannot return to the same cycles of boom and bust that led to a global recession. We can't follow the same policies that led to such imbalanced growth."

Obama needs more time help the black community ? Ok...Kicked Paterson and Thompson of NY to the curb ...Ignores his Grandma ...Murders of blacks in Chicago ...But has played more golf in his first year than Bush did in 8 years . Etc...

It’s just unbelievable! How foolishly stuck on stupid mankind can be when it comes down to maintaining law and order. But I shouldn’t be so amazed, after all, we are just a whisker away from full scale anarchy in America. It’s amazing how the damn fools in our society are debating whether or not to arm ships as a defense against these pirates. How anybody could be so stupid as to oppose the idea is baffling. No doubt the opposition is coming from the same damn fools who oppose wiretapping suspected terrorists, the same damn fools who demand Miranda warnings...

George Orwell where are you? Here is the headline in my local newspaper today: "Mercury Removal from T.F. [Twin Falls, Idaho] Apartment complex results in $50,000 bill." That's right - fifty grand. Two ounces of mercury were found in the road that leads into an apartment complex. It cost local, state, and the federal governments $50,000 to clean up the two ounce catastrophe. Read the EPA report here. This is a picture of the clean up crew: George Orwell where are you? Here is the headline in my local newspaper today: "Mercury Removal from T.F. [Twin Falls, Idaho] Apartment complex...

Patrons claim service was so bad, they had to get napkins and silverware for themselves. If you’re frustrated by poor service at a restaurant, think twice before you decide to not tip. You may be in for a bit more than just a dirty look from the waiter. "Nobody, nobody wants to be forced to pay a tip or be arrested for terrible service," Leslie Pope said when her happy hour ended in handcuffs. Pope and John Wagner were hauled away by police and charged with theft for not paying the mandatory 18 percent gratuity totaling $16 after eating at...

I'm usually adept at catching the embedded politics, in tv and movies, and I usually change the station or turn it off when I do. Tonight was the first time, and I was taken aback by it, that I discerned such tactics in the series "Bones"

Moldovan soldiers has been issued with an extra ration of onions and garlic to ward off swine flu, the defence ministry's chief doctor said Thursday. "We have introduced an extra 25 grams (one ounce) of onion and 15 grams of garlic in their daily ration," Sergiu Vasilita told AFP. So far, 24 soldiers have completed treatment for swine flu, while 19 are in hospital with acute respiratory infections, he said.

High definition, the final frontier. Where nerds can boldly go where no moviegoer has gone before. With the Blu-ray release of the "Star Trek" movie prequel, these brave fans can obsess over the film's tiny details, including whether or not a very famous robot had a cameo that nobody noticed.

Life decisions are often made when we feel that we are at a crossroads where the decision to turn to the left or to the right seems as clear for us to make as it is to breathe. Yet what about those times when the decision is not quite as clear where the variables that we are weighing are as cloudy and murky as a morning fog? Usually that is the time where the weight is heavy on our soul that we have truly to come to a decision that shoves us out of our comfort zone and that demands...

Good grief!

Dominic James, an Australian pilot, has been hailed a hero after he safely ditched his small plane into the Pacific Ocean at night, saving all six people on board.

It can often be dangerous to quote court cases, because the quotes can be taken out of context. But these are pretty clear. Obviously, direct control of medical practice in the states is beyond the power of the federal government. Linder vs United States, 285 US 5, 1925 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=268&invol=5 The Supreme Court has made the Constitutional principle clear: Obviously, direct control of medical practice in the states is beyond the power of the federal government. State of Oregon V Ashcroft, DC Cv-01-01647-JO, 2004 http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0235587p.pdf It is elemental that a state has broad power to establish and enforce standards of conduct...

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. -- Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was met by a cheering crowd of more than 1,000 people when she arrived in Noblesville Thursday night. Palin stepped off her tour bus, holding her youngest son, Trig, just after 5:30 p.m. at the Borders store at Hamilton Town Center, 6News' Rick Hightower reported. Palin waved to members of the crowd, who were shouting her name, before taking to a stage to welcome her Hoosier supporters. "We had a great time a year ago in Indiana but I think I'm having even more fun now though," Palin said. "You guys,...

A radiation-resistant version of NRAM carbon-nanotube-based memory, developed jointly by Lockheed Martin and Nantero, was tested on a recent Space Shuttle mission. The NRAM was incorporated by NASA into special autonomous testing configurations installed into a carrier at the aft end of the payload bay. It was launched into space as part of STS-125, the May 2009 mission of the Space Shuttle Atlantis that successfully serviced the Hubble Space Telescope. The project was managed by Dan Powell, Chief Nanotechnologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will prioritize the development of nuclear energy, especially the use of nuclear technology in spacecraft. Medvedev made the announcement Thursday during his annual address to the Federal Assembly. This was not the first time that Russia has suggested the development of nuclear-powered spacecraft. Anatoly Perminov, the head of Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, said last month that the agency has planned to develop spacecraft with a megawatt-class nuclear power set.

Dark energy isn't good for life in the universe. This mysterious substance, which cosmologists believe makes up around 70 percent of the universe, may eventually pull apart galaxies, then stars and planets, and finally atoms and molecules, in what some call the Big Rip. It’s ironic, then, that the search for dark energy might help in the search for life in the universe. That's because planet hunting through a technique called microlensing requires a similar sort of instrument as a dark energy mission.

Want to make a planet that can sustain carbon-based life? Don’t park it in orbit around a sunlike star. “For the long term, the sun may not be the best star,” says Edward Guinan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, coauthor of a paper reporting a new model about the suitability of planets for life. Smaller, cooler stars called orange dwarf stars might be the most hospitable, he says.

LIBERIA, Costa Rica — Franklin Chang Diaz has great aspirations for his rocket: a mail-carrier for outer space, a garbage truck for orbital debris and, the ultimate goal, a shuttle to Mars. The Costa Rica-born physicist speaks nonchalantly about the day humankind will have moved entirely to outer space, while our precious Earth becomes “a protected park.” “Our great grandchildren will always be able to come back [to Earth] from wherever they happen to live and see where their ancestors and culture came from,” said the former NASA astronaut who is now president and CEO of the Ad Astra Rocket...

The idea of bringing back Khan is enough to give any Star Trek fan goose bumps. He was harsh, calculating and is considered the greatest villain of the franchise. But, although no decisions have been made on if there is even a place for Khan in the new movie, director J.J. Abrams has hinted he could be back. "We're not even at that stage yet," he said. "But the fun of where we are on the sequel is we could use some of what was done before in a new way. But we haven't even figured out what we would...

Lloyd Marcus Video - Start Spreading The News - 2010...click link to watch video.

I am looking for links to comparisons of articles voicing outrage from the Muslim community vs articles warning against backlash, or news reports on tv, etc., with numbers: 879 articles warning against a backlash vs 31 from Muslim leaders decrying the actions of Major Hasan, for example. I looked on MRC and all they had were a few quotes from tv talking heads. Thanks for any help.

I've been in recent contact with an old high school classmate discussing several issues and the most recent was global warming. She then brought up the issue of "Peak Oil" which I researched and gave her my reply. She then stated that she gets her information from the website called TheOilDrum.com I checked it out and there does appear to be many biased articles against the oil companies and their attempts to expand domestic drilling. So my question to all of you is, are there any sites that have dealt specifically with the information being thrown out by The Oil...