Free Republic

The Texas megachurch pastor whose past comments about the Catholic Church have caused headaches for John McCain for over two months will issue an apology to Catholics later today, according a top Christian conservative. John Hagee, pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, will send a letter to Catholic League President William Donahue expressing "deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful." "After engaging in constructive dialouge with Catholic friends and leaders, I now have an improved understanding of the Catholic Church, its relation to the Jewish faith, and the history of anti-Catholicism," Hagee wrote in a letter running...

Like a marriage that has gone bad, I believe there are enough irreconcilable differences between those who want to control and those want to be left alone that divorce is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Tiny plastic bags used to sell small quantities of heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and other drugs would be banned in Chicago, under a crackdown advanced Tuesday by a City Council committee. Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) persuaded the Health Committee to ban possession of "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width," after picking up 15 of the bags on a recent Sunday afternoon stroll through a West Side park.

Climate Skeptics Seize on Cold Spell By ANDREW C. REVKIN,The New York Times March 1, 2008 March 1) - The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature. It is no wonder that some scientists, opinion writers, political operatives and other people who challenge warnings about dangerous human-caused global warming have jumped on this as a teachable moment....

One aspect of the current Presidential Campaign Season has continued to cause Figgins and I to regularly cock our heads and look at each other with facial expressions that obviously say, "What the heck does that mean?!" This aspect is the passion-evoking, yet vacant, rhetoric of Barack Obama. Actually, we touched on this subject in an earlier posting entitled The Better Angels of Our Nature?!?!?!?. Although that posting addressed Senator Ted Kennedy's old-style-politics approach to whip the crowd into a frenzy when he endorsed Obama (ironically, quoting the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln), the theme is the same ... words...

Mitt Romney suspended his presidential campaign yesterday, after his poor showing on Super Tuesday made a victory over John McCain all but mathematically impossible. As much as McCain and Mike Huckabee loathe Mitt, it's been easy to imagine them conspiring to deliver the killing stroke. Conventional wisdom says Huckabee won five southern states outright and helped turn others, such as Missouri, to McCain by taking conservative votes away from Romney. But Romney probably wasn't going to earn those ballots anyway. Southern states have GOP primary electorates dominated by evangelical Christians, specifically by Southern Baptists. And many of those Southern Baptists...

Convention Chaos Theory (Note: this is crossed-posted from TPMCafe.com). Now that an extended Democratic nomination contest appears almost certain, there's been an explosion of renewed interest in the "brokered convention" scenario, which really just means a nomination that's in doubt after the primaries and caucuses are over. The big topics (explored especially well at OpenLeft.com) have been the battle over the 796 superdelegates, who are not bound by election results, and the possibility of a pre-convention or convention credentials fight over the Michigan and Florida delegations, who currently have no seats (or even hotel rooms) in Denver. There's a more...

Tom Cruise thinks very highly of himself in this video that his church tried to hide: http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise...ed-to-suppress Reminds me of the David Bowie song, Major Tom: Ground Control to Major Tom Ground Control to Major Tom Take your protein pills and put your helmet on Ground Control to Major Tom Commencing countdown, engines on Check ignition and may God’s love be with you Spoken: Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Lift-off This is Ground Control to Major Tom You’ve really made the grade And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear Now it’s time...

No details as of yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ7YedEopp4

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just when it appeared Julie Myers had cleared every hurdle in her quest to officially become the nation's top immigration official, a dreadlocked wig and a prisoner's outfit could cost her the job. Myers, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ran into trouble earlier this month after she and two other agency managers gave the "most original" costume award to a white employee who came to the agency's Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin. The incident drew complaints of racial insensitivity and an apology from Myers. It also cast doubt on...

Americans are once again preparing for the heart-wrenching drama of a presidential election. By the middle of 2008, we expect the nation to be neatly divided between fear and loathing of the left and fear and loathing of the right. The first thing Europeans need to know is that for the price of a movie ticket you can get much more entertainment and an experience that has just about as much to do with democracy and real American politics. It doesn’t matter which movie you see.For the sake of American readers, I should point out that the left goes...

Well, you knew this just had to happen. Fires are devastating California from North of Los Angeles down to San Diego. Hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their homes. Disaster is an understatement. So along comes MoveOn Moonbat Senator Barbara Boxer to announce who is to blame. And who would that be? Why none other than George Bush. It would seem that President Bush has taken the time off from killing children and becoming amused as our servicemen are killed in Iraq to plot these fire strategies for California. And just how is this all Bush's fault?...

Charleston Daily Mail Secessionists from South and New England to meet The Associated Press Wednesday October 03, 2007 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions -- New England and the South -- are sitting down to talk. Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully. That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence. "We believe that...

Last month, UAF researcher Katey Walter brought a National Public Radio crew to Alaska’s North Slope, hoping to show them examples of what happens when methane is released when permafrost thaws beneath lakes. When they reached their destination, Walter and the crew found even more than they bargained for: a lake violently boiling with escaping methane. “It was cold, wet and windy. We were dropped off in the middle of nowhere by a helicopter and paddled out to a huge methane plume in the middle of the lake with no idea what to expect, how strong the bubbling plume would...

Tuesday, August 7, 2007 9:45 AM EDT The county elections board approves the language on a petition calling for the recall of U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg. By Dennis Pelham Daily Telegram Staff Writer ADRIAN — The path was cleared Monday for a retired teacher in Jackson to begin collecting signatures on petitions for the recall of 7th District Rep. Timothy Walberg, R-Tipton. After a two-week delay, the Lenawee County Election Commission voted Monday afternoon to give petition language a passing grade on clarity. The language proposed by James R. Carr faults Walberg for voting in favor of continuing U.S. military...

NEW YORK (AP) - Four presidential candidates are lined up to visit Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" over the next three weeks as Comedy Central's satirical news review ramps up its "Indecision 2008" coverage. Sen. Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat, is first up this Wednesday. Biden appeared on "The Daily Show" last winter on the day he announced his candidacy. Republican John McCain makes his 10th appearance on Aug. 16, followed by another Republican, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, on Aug. 20. On Aug. 22, Democratic contender Barack Obama comes back to the show for a second time, his...

In the wake of President Bush's commutation of prison time for convicted felon Lewis Libby and a developing constitutional clash over important subpoenas, influential Democratic activists are pressing Congress to put impeachment back on the table. Today MoveOn.org, the powerhouse group of 3.2 million political activists, launched an unprecedented petition calling on Congress to impeach Vice President Cheney if he defies congressional subpoenas issued to investigate the Bush administration's purge of prosecutors at the Justice Department. Leading bloggers have also launched a targeted campaign to specifically lobby Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee to put impeachment back on the...

Rumors of the Republican Party’s imminent meltdown in 2008 are rampant. Websites and blogs bristle with headlines like “They’re screwed,” “Licking their wounds,” “Republicans really are the stupid party” and “What are Republicans thinking?” And those are from the friendly conservative sources. Some wags say the party is hopelessly divided over issues ranging from abortion and Iraq to gas prices and immigration. Other observers focus on the dissident voices of GOP moderates. Some pundits point their fingers at a president who’s too distracted by war and low approval ratings to provide much party leadership. And there’s a persistent sense on...

If anti-war protesters invaded your city and forced your local government to spend an additional unbudgeted $500,000 on increased police presence, to whom would you send the bill? The city of Tacoma, Wash., decided that the U.S. military should cover the expense. According to an AP story on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website: Tacoma police say last month's 12-day anti-war protests cost the city an unbudgeted $500,000 to provide a large-scale law enforcement presence. The rough estimate covers overtime, regular compensation, equipment and food for hundreds of workers from Tacoma police and other agencies. . . . "That's a tremendous hit...