Free Republic

The town of Woodside in San Mateo County has found a way to thwart new housing development: invoking the supposed endangerment of mountain lions. Woodside, which according to the U.S. Census Bureau has a median household income of more than $250,000, has blocked any new development under Senate Bill 9 under a clause in the bill prohibiting development in the habitat of an endangered species. SB 9 was an attempt to encourage more housing development in established neighborhoods by allowing property owners to split large lots and bypass public hearings. Advertisement “We love animals,” Mayor Dick Brown told The Almanac....

Video sent to KSBW 8 by a viewer shows a mountain lion with three cubs in tow. The video was recorded with a trail cam in east Carmel Valley, near Cachagua Road. The viewer said she thinks the video was taken at the end of February.

Did you know that mountain lions can fly? Well, not quite, but they come pretty darn close with the ability to jump nearly 20 feet straight up in the air! It's not often that you see an airborne big cat, but that's exactly what was captured on this trail camera in Colorado. “Absolutely terrifying," one Facebook user said in response to the photograph. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) says that these fascinating animals are incredibly strong and fast, running as fast as 45 miles per hour and jumping as high as 19 feet straight up in the air. These cats...

Authorities say a dead hiker whose body was recovered this week was likely killed by a cougar, marking the first fatal attack by a wild cougar in Oregon and the second in the Pacific Northwest this year. Search and rescue teams found the body of Diana Bober, 55, on Monday off a trail in the Mount Hood National Forest in Welches, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of Portland. Her body was several miles from where searchers found her car last week near a ranger station. ... Her body had injuries consistent with a cougar attack and a medical examiner...

The PUMAs are back on the prowl. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to run for president has stirred up old feelings for some loyal supporters who refused to accept her defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary. When other Democrats put away their swords and rallied behind Barack Obama, the resisters responded: “Party unity, my ass!” — hence the nickname PUMAs. After seven years in the political wilderness, some are ecstatic at the chance to help elect a candidate that they believe in, and to make history by putting the first woman in the White House. Others are excited but cautious, still...

Sacrificial burial deepens mystery at Teotihuacan, but confirms the city’s militarism Partially uncovered figurine, carved in jade, found in connection with three unbound, seated bodies and other objects at the top of the pyramid’s fifth stage (the offering was presumably made in the construction of the sixth stage), circa 350 AD. This object is notable in that it is carved from jade that originated in Guatemala, and appears to be Mayan in style. Other jade objects on top of the figurine are beads and earspools. A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon...

Hillary Clinton will appear tonight at her first official campaign event of this cycle – and perhaps her first since 2008 – and it’s a doozy. Hillary will appear at the home of the most famous bitter ender from her failed 2008 bid, uber-rich Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who was a principle PUMA and notorious Barack Obama trash talker. Other wealthy satellites of Planet Hillary, including Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Jill Iscol, will also reportedly make the scene. The beneficiary of the big event is former Rep. Marjorie Margolies D-Pa., who lost her Pennsylvania House seat in 1994, mostly a martyr...

What radio and TV talk show hosts are pushing the Obama Birth Certificate issue? I'm not aware of any.

Good Monday Morning, Pumas! I’m attending to some unfinished business today, but will be near a computer most of the day. What’s going on in the news today? I have a feeling a lot of the stuff bubbling up around Afghanistan, PrimaryGate, BlackPantherGate, and that the now not-so-secret war by the obama administration against Hillary Clinton will be boiling over this week. If, as Hillaryis44 claims, obama and his minions have it out for Hillary, I wonder if they will choose this upcoming weekend, when she will undoubtedly be (somewhat) distracted by her daughter’s big wedding, to really pull out...

And he and his gang will do it again too, if we let them. But this time, Pumas are still sounding the alarm. What happened with the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation cover-up, as well as Holder’s Justice Department’s alleged policy of not prosecuting Voting Rights Act complaints brought by citizens who happen to be white, suddenly has a larger context, a background, a backstory, and, crucially, a THEME. And the theme is: Barack Obama and his Movement will lie, cheat, and steal to win elections. Literally. Since many of today’s readers may be new to this site and...

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) - Nine people charged with illegally accessing President Barack Obama's student loan records while working for a Department of Education contractor in Iowa have pleaded not guilty in federal court. The former employees of Vangent Inc. are accused of gaining access to a computer at the contractor's office in Coralville and getting into Obama's records while he was either a candidate for president, president-elect or president.

As Barack Obama’s approval numbers trend ever lower – and a new Gallup poll reports that 50% of Americans believe the President doesn’t even deserve a second term – it’s going to be very interesting to watch Hillary Clinton. Well, not the Secretary of State herself, of course. She’s busy at Foggy Bottom, burnishing her foreign policy credentials. Instead, watch her husband. Notwithstanding news accounts about the détente between the Clintons and Obama, surely the former president and his wife can’t help but feel that their predictions about the political disaster that would result from Obama’s inexperience and naivete, reportedly...

Obama recently said this: "Surely you can question my policies without questions my faith, or for that matter my citizenship." This quote is significant, and IMHO desperate. Progressives play political games. Especially with words; political correctness is only one fascet of this. Many times, they throw stuff out hoping someone will pick it up. I think that's what this is. They are out there thinking "pick it up, PICK IT UP!" whether it gets picked up or not in a day, week, month, or more. For all the anger that conservatives had that the progressive media didn't go after van...

Did Hope for Rising GOP Stars like Bobby Jindal Play a Role in the Obama’s Presidential Eligibility Scandal? When questions about Obama’s eligibility to serve as President arose, I immediately recognized that this could be the biggest political scandal in U.S. history, bigger even than Watergate. The allegations, if true, would have created widespread political turmoil and would have had to involve people, high up people, ignoring and/or covering up facts. How could a young Senator from Illinois have gotten so far, so quickly, in national politics without some in both the Democratic & Republican Parties taking notice, researching, discovering...

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Neither the first snow of the winter nor the slushy, untreated roads could deter hundreds of fans from coming here Saturday morning to get a copy of “Going Rogue” signed by it’s author, Sarah Palin. The BJ’s in the Fair Lakes Shopping Center welcomed hundreds of people to line up and wait for hours to meet the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate. People came prepared to withstand the elements. Winter coats, umbrellas and most importantly plastic shopping bags, protected their books from the chunky, wet falling flakes. Some cuddled an armful of books for their favorite...

When I was in college, I read a book that changed my life. It was Susan Brownmiller's tome, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which explained rape as an act of power, not just lust. What I found particularly chilling was the chapter on war -- how rape is used to terrorize a population and destroy the enemy's spirit. While edifying, the book magnified the vulnerability I already felt as a female. Fear of rape became a constant dread, and I sought a solution that would help shield me from danger. The answer: seek safe harbor within the Democratic...

A friend of ours sent us this article from RedState just now, and we had a good discussion about it. It’s commentary on David Brooks’ column in the NY Times, where Brooks argues Democrats really and truly are committing political suicide, since the White House and Congress believe America is The Huffington Post. Brooks says Democrats will try to ram Deathcare through using every trick in the book, even if only 35% of the country identifies as liberal and supports this. Brooks predicts a massive backlash against the White House and Congress in 2010. One of the comments on this...

The Democratic National Committee has released a new video to push back against protests happening at town hall meetings across the country, and according to ABC's Jake Tapper, these demonstrators are being depicted as "irrational birthers who want to 'destroy' President Obama."

I think Jamie Kirchik has the politics pretty much exactly right. Eugene Robinson, Joe Conason and E.J. Dionne, in addition to all the politicians and bloggers Jamie mentions, have been pumping the birther story in order to tar Republicans as extremists at precisely the moment their own agenda is being rejected by the American people for it's own extremism. Even the folks at Mother Jones think this is a plausible explanation of the administration's behavior: If the White House thinks the birther movement is hurting the Republican party, they might refrain from doing anything that could cause the GOP to...

OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE SPOTTED IN BOGUS MOON LANDING FOOTAGEAugust 5, 2009 Tardy though they are, we welcome MSNBC to finally joining every major conservative news outlet -- including Fox News, The American Spectator, Human Events, National Review and Sweetness & Light -- in discrediting the idea that President Obama wasn't born in this country and, therefore, is ineligible to be president. Now the big question: Was Joe Biden born on this planet? Inasmuch as the "birther" movement was hatched in the station wagon of MSNBC's favorite left-wing fantasist, Larry Johnson, maybe the mainstream media can stop acting as if it's...