Free Republic

Blanche Lincoln, AR 45% Public Policy Polling, March Barbara Boxer, CA 48% Survey USA, June 12-14 Michael Bennet, CO 34% Public Policy Polling, April 24-26 (trails Rep. Beauprez) Christopher Dodd, CO 37% Quinnipiac, April (trails several) Roland Burris, IL 17% Public Policy Polling, April 24-26 (likely to lose primary) Harry Reid, NV 34% Mason-Dixon, June 18-19 Kirsten Gillenbrand, NY 24% Marist (disapproval rating also below 50%) Byron Dorgan, ND (only poll in this red state was commissioned by DailyKOS) Also in possible danger but above 50% approval: Daniel Inouye, HI leads Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, but he'll be 86, and...

Swine flu cannot be stopped as 100,000 new cases per day feared David Rose More than 100,000 swine flu cases could be diagnosed every day by the end of next month, the Health Secretary has warned. Britain has moved past the stage of trying to contain the spread of the virus and into the “treatment phase”, Andy Burnham told the House of Commons. Cases of the H1N1 virus were doubling each week in Britain and could reach six figures daily by the end of August if current trends continued, he added. Anyone with flu-like symptoms will be advised to stay...

LISTEN TO THE REAL REVEREND JESSE ON THE INTERNET OR A RADIO STATION IN YOUR AREA......BOND Action, Inc...Educating, Motivating and Rallying Americans! The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show Streamed live online from 6-9 a.m. PST / 9-12 a.m. EST. Call in the same times usually. For Live Questions or Comments Call 1-888-77-JESSE(5-3773) You can email comments and questions to radio@bondaction.org For more information on getting The Jesse Lee Peterson Show picked up on a station in your local area call Ermias Alemayehu at 1-877-WE ACT77 (932-2877)

MOSCOW, July 2 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow will discuss a new arms reduction deal with Washington only in connection with U.S. plans for a missile shield in central Europe, the Russian prime minister's spokesman said on Thursday. Russia and the United States have been involved in comprehensive talks over a new nuclear arms reduction deal to replace the START 1 treaty, which expires in December. Russian and U.S. experts agreed to report the results at the Russian-U.S. summit in Moscow in July. "This link is well-grounded and we have explained our position on this issue to our American partners during...

Public Opinion on Jong Woon Uniformly Negative By Jiro Ishimaru, Representative of the Osaka office of Asia Press [2009-07-02 15:53 ] Jiro Ishimaru, who has been collecting news material along the North Korea-China frontier for more than a decade, visited the border regions again in mid-June. He met with nine North Koreans who were heading back to North Korea after concluding their private business. Ishimaru, the Representative of the Osaka office of "Asia Press,” subsequently wrote up what the North Koreans had told him, specifically about their view of Kim Jong Woon’s succession and the latest complications following the apparent...

A class of fifth graders in California got a shocking crash course on the birds and the bees courtesy of their teacher and an X-rated home video she accidentally included in a DVD of classroom memories. The error was not caught until after the DVDs were distributed to the students and their families. Parents tell CBS 13 Sacramento that the woman is a good teacher who made an honest but embarrassing mistake. According to the station, the offending DVD starts with a menu screen that displays various school trips and functions. Click on one of them and "you see kids...

A post-launch examination of the Unha-2 By David Wright and Theodore A. Postol | 29 June 2009 Article Highlights * The launch vehicle North Korea tested on April 5, the Unha-2, represents a significant advance over North Korea's previous launchers. * In particular, it would have the capability to reach the continental United States with a payload of 1 ton or more if Pyongyang modified it for use as a ballistic missile. * However, if key Unha-2's components were acquired from Russia and elsewhere, North Korea's domestic missile development program may be much more limited than commonly assumed. North Korea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFxvy9XyUtg&feature=channel_page How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn't (by Irwin Schiff) It explains how the economic works in comic and easy to understand form Show this to your Socialist friends and challenge their thinking

Rasmussen poll confirms Americans fear Obama gun control agenda By CCRKBA Thursday, July 2, 2009 BELLEVUE, WA – A new Rasmussen poll reveals that 57 percent of American citizens believe gun sales are up over the past several months because of widespread fears that the government will tighten restrictions on gun ownership. “The poll results confirm what we’ve been saying,” noted Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “American citizens are fearful that the Obama administration and a Democrat-controlled Congress will pass new laws to further erode the individual right to own...

The most senior British officer to die in action since the Falklands has been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was commander of a Battle Group spearheading the fight against the Taliban. His command vehicle was blown up by an improvised explosives device. He is the most senior British officer to die in combat since Lieutenant Colonel 'H' Jones, commander of 2 Para, was shot dead by Argentine forces during the battle of Goose Green in the Falklands War of 1982. A soldier of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six Illinois banks and one bank in Texas were shuttered Thursday as government regulators proposed new rules for private equity firms seeking to take over failed banks. That brought the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 52. That's more than double the 25 which failed in all of 2008 and the three closed in 2007. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of all seven. The total cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund from the seven closings will be $314.3 million, the FDIC said. The assets of most of the failed banks will be...

David Frum has done conservatives a great favor, and we should be thankful. The favor is not that he has written another negative piece about Gov. Palin. No, that's nothing new for Frum, who has been bashing the governor since she stepped up onto the national stage. Frum's gift to conservatives is that in the article, he clearly demonstrates why Vichy Republicans cannot be trusted to act in the GOP's best interests. Referencing Todd Purdum's VF hit piece which has caused such a stir, Frum itemizes Purdum's anti-Palin talking points from the VF smear job, and then he makes this...

Charges of rape and kidnapping have been dropped against a married father of two who got more than he bargained for during a romantic rendezvous in the mountains with a stripper. David Jansen was arrested after a pizza deliveryman stopped by his remote rented cabin in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains and saw a woman tied up on the couch mouthing, "Call 911." But Jansen claimed all along that the woman was his lover and that she was into bondage, his lawyers providing stacks of evidence that the two had been in a relationship for sometime. After news of the arrest...

MANATEE — A resident of the Palmetto Point neighborhood came home Tuesday morning to find an intruder making off with his shotgun, but before the burglar could get away, the resident opened fire on him with another gun, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. Whether the intruder was hit was unknown, but deputies said the burglar got away with nothing. The incident started about 9:45 a.m. when a 61-year-old man came home to his residence in the 5200 block of Palmetto Point Drive, Palmetto. He entered through the front door and found an intruder wearing only black shorts and...

An American soldier who went missing from a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan was "sold" to a local militant group - which claims it will soon release a video of the captive and a list of demands, a U.S. military official said. "Our leaders have not decided on the fate of this soldier," said a commander with the Taliban's hard-line Haqqani faction, according to Agence-France Press. "They will decide on his fate and soon we will present video tapes of the coalition soldier and our demand to media."

VETERAN newspaper columnist and editor Frank Devine has died. He was 77 years old. Friend and former New South Wales Opposition leader Peter Coleman, writing on The Australian website where Devine was a former columnist and editor, described him as the "laughing cavalier of Australian journalism". Devine had been editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Post, a senior editor at the American edition of Reader's Digest and editor-in-chief of the Australian Reader's Digest.

Air America host Ron Reagan attacked Rush Limbaugh on his show as a wife-beater. In June, Limbaugh criticized Obama for hiring a new "adviser on domestic violence." This gave Reagan fodder to hit Limbaugh for his several previous marriages and to imply he abused them.

WASHINGTON – In a slap at President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton will headline a fundraiser for a New York congresswoman challenging White House-backed Sen. Kristen Gillibrand in the state's Democratic primary. Clinton has not endorsed in the race, but his efforts to help Rep. Carolyn Maloney could be seen as a snub to Gillibrand and the Obama White House. Matt McKenna, a spokesman for Clinton, said he will be attending a July 20 fundraiser in New York. The White House has played an active role in clearing the field for Gillibrand, who was appointed earlier this year to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is defending the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and says the rule of law is working in Honduras.

...IDF sources said the decision to allow navy vessels to sail through the canal was made recently and was a definite "change of policy"....The significance of the move was debatable, but it could be interpreted as a message to Iran and a demonstration of strengthening ties between Egypt and Israel. In the event of a conflict with Iran, and if Israel decided to involve its three Dolphin-class submarines - which according to foreign reports can fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and serve as a second-strike platform - the quickest route would be to send them through the Suez Canal.

Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals. In a revamped health care...

The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the case of the New Haven firefighters, was a ringing endorsement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964's ban on racial discrimination and a repudiation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's decision in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. While five justices flatly rejected Sotomayor's ruling, even the four dissenters wouldn't have let stand her ruling allowing the results of a promotion exam to be set aside because no black firefighter had a top score. Ricci is also something else: a riveting lesson in political sociology, thanks to the concurring opinion...

WASHINGTON -- The Major League Rules is a sprawling, dense, little-known, 254-page document, periodically updated, that governs the business side of baseball. Among other things, it lays out, in painstaking legalese, the process and guidelines for the sport's annual draft, and in recent years, these sections have provided a road map for a certain notorious agent bent on circumventing the draft itself. In 1996, agent Scott Boras exploited a loophole to help gain free agency for four draftees who did not receive contract offers from the teams that selected them within 15 days of the draft, as required. A year...

Privately-owned Chinese low-cost carrier Spring Airlines has spoken to Airbus about adding standing-seats on its Airbus A320s so it can have 40% more passengers on board. Zhang Wuan, an official at the Shanghai airline who works closely with the CEO, says: "We are planning to have standing seats" and have had "initial discussions with the Airbus side to see if the safety question can be" addressed. "We want to have it so more people can afford to fly," says Zhang, adding that the carrier estimates it can fit 40% more passengers on board its A320s. The standing seats will reportedly...

...These warrants will not be subject to the normal, federal check-hold limits and therefore could be subject to extended holds....The State of California will likely return unpaid any registered warrants that it receives before the payment date. Therefore, depositors of these warrants may be subject to returned-deposit fees if their banks attempt to collect these warrants before they are payable...

[T]oday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the layoff of Census workers comprised the bulk of the jobs just lost in the federal government. The July 2 Employment Situation Summary states: "Employment in federal government fell by 49,000 in June, largely due to the layoff of workers temporarily hired to prepare for Census 2010." What's wrong with this picture? The federal government isn't exactly on an austerity binge right now. Given that the Obama administration lied about ACORN's involvement in the Census, it might be lying now about the laid off workers being temporary employees. Is the way being...

The news cycle these days is like time-lapse photography. Stories are born, flower and pass out of sight again in a matter of hours. For that matter, the Washington Post's "Salon" program didn't last much longer than that. Blink, or take a day off from the computer, and you've missed it. Here, via The Examiner, is the invitation that the Washington Post sent to lobbyists for companies in the health care industries; ...: The mind boggles: the Post wants lobbyists to bring "your organization's CEO or executive director" to a "salon" at the home of Post publisher Katharine Weymouth. If...

The nation's jobless rate scored its biggest year-to-year June increase in four decades, losing 6.1 million jobs in one year's time, a nearly 70 percent spike, a FOXNews.com analysis of labor statistics shows. The jobless rate leapt to 9.5 percent from 5.6 percent between June 2008 and June 2009, a 3.9 percent spread that matched April and May yearly differences and tie for the highest yearly percentage spread since May 1974-1975. In May 2009, 14.5 million people were unemployed -- 6 million more than one year earlier. The jobless rate during that time leapt to 9.4 percent from 5.5 percent,...

Psst: The super-secretive National Security Agency is about to build a huge, $1.9 billion data center at Camp Williams, Utah, to help spy on communications worldwide. The planned work there is so sensitive and classified that Utah's congressional delegation is declining to talk about it, saying it doesn't want to accidentally step over any lines about what can and cannot be disclosed. They referred inquiries to the NSA, which provided only a brief statement confirming the center is coming to Utah.

Red light cameras now check for insurance, tooDrive without insurance? Then you'd better stay out of Ohio, where the state is considering a program that uses red-light cameras and insurance company databases to check passing traffic for uninsured motorists. The system would use license plate numbers to verify driver insurance. According to the Columbus Dispatch, officials in Chicago, who are considering the same system, from InsureNet of Novi, Michigan, think that such a program could generate $200 million in additional revenue for the Windy City. When the system identifies an uninsured motorist, the driver would be sent a letter instructing...

by Gina L. DiorioHappy Independence Day! Wait, you may say, Independence Day isn’t until July 4th. If you think that’s true, think again. For while the Continental Congress adopted our Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it was on July 2 that that body officially declared independence from Great Britain by voting in favor of the Lee Resolution. Named for its author, Virginia Delegate Richard Henry Lee, the Lee Resolution stated: Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and...

The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced Thursday that all its offices will be closed for three Fridays in July as part of furlough order. Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal state of emergency ordered a third furlough day for more than 200,000 state employees. The move will bring their total pay cut to about 14 percent.

More bad news for Barack Obama. The first major book to be published on his presidency has shot up to the No. 1 spot on The New York Times' bestseller list the very first week of its release. Unlike the fawning media coverage the Obama White House has come to expect, this new best-seller "Catastrophe" paints a deeply negative picture of Obama and his policies. "Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests Are Transforming a Slump Into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism, and a Disaster Into a Catastrophe . . . and How to Fight Back" is authored by...

A research group from Bristol has found that a naturally occurring protein, known as nerve growth factor, can dramatically improve the survival of heart cells and reduce heart cell damage following a heart attack in mice. The researchers hope that this treatment could also benefit humans and prevent heart attack victims from suffering further damage to their heart muscle. Nerve growth factor - healing broken hearts Growth factors are naturally occurring molecules produced by the body to regulate cell division and cell survival processes. Some growth factors are known to influence many different cell types, whereas others are considered...

No, just kidding. At -10, it’s actually quite a bit higher than you’d expect. Less than a week before Sen.-elect Al Franken (D-Minn.) is set to be sworn into office, a new national poll shows that 44 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of the former comedian and liberal radio host. A Rasmussen Reports poll released Thursday found that 34 percent have a favorable view of Franken, who defeated former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman to win the seat. Another 22 percent are not sure what they think of him. The poll revealed that Franken generates strong feelings among his...

In his recent speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama counseled Americans to beware "dire warnings about socialized medicine and government takeovers; long lines, and rationed care; decisions made by bureaucrats and not doctors." Unfortunately for the president, there are a few Cassandras whose warnings are worth heeding. Chief among them are the millions of Canadians who have received substandard care at the hands of a government-run health system. Before America emulates the Canadian model with a new trillion-plus-dollar health plan, it's worth examining whether government-run systems are all they're cracked up to be. As a Canadian by birth,...

    ~ Finally Friday ~ Celebration Of An Exceptional Country       A World Without America Have you ever used one of the following items? Mouse (computing), Ethernet, Zipper, Teddy Bear, Radar Gun, Radial Arm Saw, Airbag, Autopilot, Bubblegum, Burr Truss, Cash Register, Crayons, Email, Ferris Wheel, Flashlight, Franklin Stove, Gilhoolie, Internet, Laser Printer, Nylon, Microwave oven, Floppy Disk, Scrabble, Shopping cart, Tea Bag, etc. Click for more. If so, THANK AMERICA!     Fun Facts About America:   --Venus Fly Traps only live in the wild in the Carolinas and nowhere else in the world. --A town called Terminus...

When someone takes out a scalpel, it's usually going to hurt — a lot.Yet Peter Orszag, President Obama's budget director, claims the U.S. could slash $700 billion in annual medical costs without affecting quality. That would make it much easier to pay for sweeping health care reform, which is struggling on Capitol Hill over cost concerns. But divining and adopting best practices is trickier than Orszag may realize, some researchers say. The head of the Office of Management and Budget draws heavily on the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. The atlas has found that Medicare spending varies greatly across the...

Time: July 4, 2009 from 10am to 2pm Location: Fort Lauderdale Federal Courthouse Organized By: Karen Moore/Lauren O'Brien Event Description: Tea Party to Protest spending and taxes. Join us on Broward Blvd. and Third to make your stand against wasteful spending and taxation without representation. We will be there from 10 am until 2 pm. Bring the kids and bring signs to show your support for this effort. Should you wish to contribbute or help out with time or spreading the word, please feel free to contact me. See you all there!

It’s slowly starting to make the news, now. To be sure, the “mainstream” media is doing as little as possible to cover this heinous crime, but the new media is starting to make it know despite their efforts to promote their “objective bias.” I’m talking about Frank Lombard, Associate director of Duke University’s Center for Health Policy, and his despicable molestation of a 5-year old boy he adopted. Lombard was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old African American son for sex to an undercover cop. Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted son...

U.S. nonfarm payroll employment has declined by 6.5 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007. One exception is Wal-Mart, which has expanded its domestic work force by 40,000 (2.9%) and announced June 3 that it will add 22,000 jobs in its U.S. stores in 2009.Wal-Mart's everyday job creation is a countercyclical trend visible in all six recessions since the firm's IPO in October 1970 during the December 1969-to-November 1970 recession. Corporations with entrepreneurial roots (think Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton) are providing the everyday job creation the U.S. economy needs to escape the worst economic contraction since the Great...

> The Desert Eagle pistol can "blow a hole the size of a Mack truck through a person," said Leigh Winchester, regional chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. >

Feminists irate over game show ISTANBUL - A new game show claims there is entertainment value in asking men to guess which pair of women has managed to answer a simple trivia question. WomenÂ’s rights activists react after just two episodes, claiming the show is evidence of the discrimination against women in Turkish society. Â’Its format is an attack on women,Â’ the activists say Feminists irate over game show WomenÂ’s activists are up in arms over a new television show they argue depicts all women as unintelligent. The showÂ’s producer, however, says the show unveils the failure of the Turkish...

Mission Accomplished: The withdrawal of U.S. troops from 15 Iraqi cities makes this a time to remember the sacrifices that made success possible — and the president who refused to lose.The concerns that former Vice President Dick Cheney recently expressed regarding our forces in Iraq are not to be taken lightly. Reacting to the announcement last week that U.S. soldiers would leave Iraq's cities in a 24-hour span, Cheney reflected to the Washington Times that "one might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks." The former defense secretary for the first...

Air France Flight 447 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the 228 people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets, French investigators said Thursday in their first report into the June 1 accident. ... Problematic speed sensors on the Airbus A330-200 jet that have been the focus of intense speculation since the crash may have misled the plane's pilots but were not a direct cause, Bouillard said... ;... The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down in a remote area of...

The Hemisphere: A Honduran official has warned that deposed President Mel Zelaya was in league with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to ship drugs to the U.S. If true, can this really be the man the U.S. wants back in power?Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez dropped a bombshell last week when he said Zelaya, the president who was thrown out by a constitutional process June 28 after defying the law, had a little side business with the Caracas caudillo allowing cocaine to roll into Honduras from Venezuela before heading to the U.S. "Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission...

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d'état. That is nonsense. In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law. To understand recent events, you have to know a bit about Honduras's constitutional history. In 1982, my country adopted a new Constitution that enabled our orderly return to democracy after years of military rule. After more...

Politics: The former Stuart Smalley becomes the 60th Democrat in the U.S. Senate, thanks to the community organizers at Acorn and the little-known Secretary of State Project. Is the system being rigged?Politics: The former Stuart Smalley becomes the 60th Democrat in the U.S. Senate, thanks to the community organizers at Acorn and the little-known Secretary of State Project. Is the system being rigged? Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman conceded defeat in the mother of all recounts in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race after the state's Supreme Court unanimously rejected his lawsuit. Arguably, his seat may have been lost the day in 2006...

America is with you, Chavista douchebag ! Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said he’s plotting his return to the Central American nation and called for “strong” action from the U.S. to help restore him to power. “Their words are strong,” Zelaya said today during an interview in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel in Panama. “We’re going to see now if their actions are strong.”… The U.S. has suspended some aid to Honduras while it evaluates whether the removal of Zelaya meets the definition of a military coup under American law. “We’ve taken some actions to hit the pause button...

Who won the Cold War? That’s a no-brainer. The United States prevailed while the Soviet Union collapsed, and the People’s Republic of China dumped Marxism; capitalism (free markets and private property) triumphed over socialism (centrally planned markets and state-owned property); an ethos of individual rights proved to be more resilient and healthy than collectivist ideology; relatively small, democratic government clearly was demonstrated to help a society prosper far more effectively than elitist Big Government. How ironic, then, that voices in Russia and China are mocking our current Big Government policies. Those whose countries took the tragic, impoverishing detour through Big...