Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- Congressman John Sullivan introduced H.Res. 1063 Wednesday, a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to require American citizens to purchase government approved health insurance, or else face criminal penalty. The Sullivan resolution also demands the removal of the individual health insurance mandate from any final healthcare reform bill that Congress considers. Congressman Sullivan issued the following statement after introduction of the resolution. “My resolution builds off the efforts of at least 36 state legislatures, including Oklahoma, that are looking to limit or oppose health mandates in the House and Senate...

I may catch some flak for this, but I’m prepared. While I very much like Sarah Palin and what she represents, I do believe she made a serious error when answering a question concerning the issue of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Patricia Sullivan is daring to go where many women would never have dared to go before Sarah Palin and Barack Obama came on the national political scene. She’s running for Florida’s 8th Congressional District currently held by Democrat Alan Grayson against a trial lawyer and a real estate agent. Palin inspired her; concern for her children’s futures motivated her to leave her current position as a self described Domestic Engineer/School Teacher/Community Organizer. “… and that still wouldn’t come close to covering everything I do,” quips Sullivan. “The first thing I would like to do is repeal the “stimulus” spending bill...

First, expect the major national outlets (NBC, New York Times, etc.) to ignore this evidence of Palin's overwhelming popularity. They've been commissioning polls especially designed to show that Palin is unpopular, and they're not going to let facts get in their way. Second, to the extent that the elite media take notice of the huge crowds at Palin events, expect them to focus obsessively over any tinfoil-hat crackpots who turn up. Time or Newsweek will send reporters out to these book-signings, and the reporters will interview scores of Palin fans until they find one or two conspiracy kooks who think...

a friend has been sending me ecstatic emails about the speech. I just watched it—the speech is every bit as good as the ones candidate Obama gave, as the performance candidate Obama delivered at the HRC/Logo Democratic Primary Debate, as the open letter to the LGBT community that candidate Obama released before last November's election. Imagine all the wonderful things this guy is going to accomplish if he ever actually gets elected president. In other words: sorry, folks, nothing new to see here. Pledges, promises, excuses. Lip service. Other reactions...

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to release notes and summaries of former Vice President Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case, but is allowing the deletion of what may be some of the most interesting details in the documents. In a ruling issued Thursday morning, Judge Emmet Sullivan flatly rejected claims by both Bush and Obama appointees at DOJ that the entirety of the records should be withheld because their disclosure could discourage White House officials from cooperating in future investigations. The judge said the prospect of such inquiries was...

It seems that Andrew Sullivan’s application for US citizenship hangs in the balance — but not really, and that is the issue. Gawker and other sites report that this past summer, blogger and columnist Sullivan was arrested on national seashore in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for illegal possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor that would incur a $125 for Sullivan, if he was found guilty. No big deal — it happens a lot in that area of our country. The only stumbling block is Sullivan’s pending U.S. citizenship, which might have been adversely affected should he have been brought to court. Enter...

Note: Photo and videos included. COEUR D'ALENE -- The Aryan Nations is experiencing an unwanted resurgence in North Idaho. SNIPPET: "However, a man named Paul Mullet claims he is going to bring the racist organization back." SNIPPET: "Mullet says he moved here from Ohio five months ago because North Idaho is the "last stand" for the Aryan Nations movement. Mullet says he's in the process of buying a large amount of land in the area." SNIPPET: "Monday's distribution of racist material in Spokane Valley's Trentwood neighborhood was the latest in a series of similar incidents. Aryan Nations literature has also...

WASHINGTON – One of the most influential bloggers, pundits and columnists in America, Andrew Sullivan, has joined the rising chorus of voices across the political spectrum calling for Barack Obama to release his original, long-form birth certificate to put aside growing doubts about his eligibility for the presidency. Sullivan writes that he believes official accounts, such as the recent statement by Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Health Department, that maintain Obama was born there and is a "natural born citizen." Sullivan says, however, Americans should not be expected to accept on blind faith the word of public...

From the Free Republic blog commenters, courtesy of Balloon Juice: What goes around comes around... One less nazi as far as I am concerned. This isn't good, boys and girls ... not good at all. This serial-killer piece of excrement will be held up by every abortionist and every lover of abortionists as the reason why the Secret Service needs to be assigned to guard every abortionist, every abortion mill and every lover of abortions in this country. SNIP

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa Congressman John Sullivan has checked himself into the Betty Ford Center in California to treat an alcohol addiction. "To ensure my success in this fight, I've decided to take a temporary leave of absence from Congress," he said in a statement. "I value my relationship with the citizens of Oklahoma's First Congressional District, whom I am privileged and honored to have served for the past eight years. So, I wanted to be open and honest on this tough situation. "I ask for your continued support and prayers as I face the challenges that lay ahead. I...

In the Sunday Times yesterday Andrew Sullivan claimed, in respect of the controversy over the alleged use of torture by counter-terrorist investigators under the Bush administration, that a senior al Qaeda suspect named abu Zubeydah had given false information under torture that there had been an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda – furthermore, that he had been tortured specifically to get him to make that statement in order to help justify the war in Iraq. Sullivan wrote: This is partly how the entire war was justified: on a tortured lie. And this much we now know for...

A Plan for Defusing the North Korea Crisis October 17, 2006 by John O'Sullivan Everyone agrees China is the key to the North Korean crisis, but most diplomats dealing with the crisis have no idea how to turn that key in the lock. As the nearest great power, China should in principle favor reducing and eventually eliminating the dangerous instability posed by nuclear totalitarian North Korea. Since Pyongyang is utterly dependent on China economically and strategically, the Chinese government in Beijing has the power to change the regime if it chooses. (In practice a few telephone calls to some of...

"Bush and Cheney were, in fact, more brutal in their "enhanced interrogation" than the Gestapo was. And note that I am not engaging in the slightest hyperbole here. I'm not saying that the US is Nazi Germany in any way. I am saying that the torture program used by Bush and Cheney follows exactly the specific methods used by the Gestapo...When the US captured officials who had done to prisoners exactly what the last president did, the US prosecuted them, found them guilty and executed them. The price Cheney pays is a fawning interview on CNN. That's who we are....

Andrew Sullivan has decided that he now knows the truth about neoconservatism: "We patiently listened as neocons told us that the Palestinians are too dysfunctional a people ever to have democratic rights or their own state, but that the the ancient sectarian warfare of Iraq can be transformed in a few years!"

Word from New York informs that, given the absence of the cardinal-archbishop, Gotham's lead vicar-general, Auxiliary Bishop Dennis Sullivan, will celebrate Tuesday's funeral Mass for Fr Richard John Neuhaus. Since his death yesterday, a torrent of tributes have abounded from Neuhaus' horde of devoted friends and admirers, joined by a very grateful press corps who mourn an infinitely supportive colleague, an ever-impeccable source -- and, of course, a ceaseless fountain of great copy. But of all these, the most heartfelt to surface comes from the beloved protege who'll preach at Tuesday's rites: Fr Raymond de Souza of the archdiocese...

Taking Yes For An Answer Dish readers will know my own conflicted feelings about the selection of Rick Warren for the Inaugural Invocation. But feelings must at some point cede to reason. And I sense an understandable but, the more I think about it, misjudged response on the part of my fellow gays and lesbians. ...we may be pushing away from a real opportunity to engage and win hearts and minds...I think Obama is different. ... Do gays and lesbians want to be a part of this - or sit fuming on the sidelines at symbolic slights? I know the...

The president-elect has to take a stand on Bush's dark legacy. A small and largely unnoticed spat among the transition planners for the president-elect, Barack Obama, broke out last week. It was the first genuinely passionate debate among the Obamaites and it centres on a terribly difficult and terribly important decision that will be among the first that Obama has to make. How does he deal with the legacy of criminal actions of his predecessor's administration when it comes to detention, interrogation, abuse and torture of terror suspects? That has long hovered in the back of the minds of those...

I should probably apologize to everyone before showing you this video. But it just the sort of thing that is being embraced in Democratic circles as acceptable behavior. That smug prick Andrew Sullivan posted it on his blog calling it Red, White And MILF. It is so reprehensible that I have no words with which to express my outrage. I am sure some of you won't have that problem. Watch the video here. I don't think anyone wants it on this site.

If you want to know why ... John McCain came to pick a total unknown with a Down Syndrome baby as his replacement as war-president, you have to understand the immense importance of the Christianist base. McCain isn't one of them, however much he tries to re-tell his life-story to make it so. They know it, he knows it, and he needed a religious running mate. He might have succeeded with Pawlenty, who is a solid pick that a mature and responsible campaign would have selected in a heartbeat. Instead - partly out of insane cynicism (did he really believe...