Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Washington D.C.'s City Council has voted to legalize gay marriage in the nation's capital. Mayor Adrian Fenty has promised to sign the bill, which was co-sponsored by 10 of the council's 13 members. The final vote Tuesday was 11-2. The bill now goes to Congress, which has final say over the district's laws. Opponents say they'll try to get Congress or voters to overturn it. Passage of the bill is a victory for gay marriage supporters, who have been dealt a recent string of defeats... Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont. New Hampshire will...

The Obama administration might think Climategate is a nonevent, but on Monday, Pennsylvania State University announced it was launching an investigation into the academic conduct of Michael Mann, director of the school's Earth System Science Center. Yesterday, it was announced that Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, would step aside while his university conducts an investigation. With so much fraud being exposed in the academic community that studies and promotes global-warming theories, an example has to be made of someone. There are dozens of researchers at other institutions involved in this...

Following the release by Breitbart's Big Government website of a video showing employees at ACORN's San Diego County office offering to assist in the transportation and exploitation of underage prostitutes from abroad, the Attorney General of California announced an investigation into ACORN's operations. Nights before the visit, ACORN dumped thousands of documents in a dumpster. Breitbart obtained them, says they are shocking evidence of ACORN's illegality and promises to release them bit by bit over time: Documents shared with BigGovernment.com include information exposing not only the inner workings of ACORN in California, but also personal, sensitive information belonging to employees,...

FORT BELVOIR, Va. - A Soldier successfully shoulder-fired a "smart" High Explosive Airburst, or HEAB round for the first time Aug. 11 from the XM-25 weapon system at Aberdeen Test Center, Md. The Army plans on purchasing more than 12,500 XM-25 systems starting in 2012, which will be enough to put one in each Infantry squad and Special Forces team, according to officials at Program Executive Office-Soldier. At first glance, the XM-25 looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. It features an array of sights, sensors and lasers housed in a Target Acquisition Fire Control unit on top, an...

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts...

American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday. Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States. "Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated," said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," Douglas added in a...

Obama Will Remove Abortion Funding Ban From Health Care Bill Washington, DC -- Top Obama advisor David Axelrod on Sunday confirmed what pro-life advocates already suspected would happen. He said President Barack Obama will work with congressional Democrats to remove the abortion funding ban the House approved in its version of the government-run health care bill. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5659.html

Move over abortion. Here comes sex-change operations. Republicans may call for a vote on an amendment that would keep Obamacare (Pelosicare) from covering sex-change operations.

Rather remarkable ways in which millions of dollars were passed out. no wonder no jobs were created. I thought "shovel ready" meant something.

Rocco Landesman, the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) chairman, said, in part: "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists."...

The past haunts Richard Nixon's library/h2> Once privately run, the Yorba Linda presidential museum is making a transition to government operation. And that has turned statues of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai into political footballs. The statues depict two old men relaxing in easy chairs. As others mill about the drawing room, the men engage in conversation, one gesturing at the other to underscore a point. For nearly 20 years the likenesses of China's communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai have sat perfectly still in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. Now, they are creating...

On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”: On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how...

New website (biggovernment.com) with complete video footage of ACORN investigation.

Must go to the site for audio and see the Glenn Beck links too. http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/sep/01/official-dishonesty-national-endowment-arts/

A photo of two Democratic legislators playing solitaire has ignited controversy at the state Capitol and in the blogosphere. The Associated Press picture has appeared in any number of venues, and it shows two lawmakers sitting in the back row of the historic Hall of the House in Hartford during the lengthy debate over the two-year, $37 billion state budget. On the left is Rep. Barbara Lambert, a freshman Democrat from Milford who won her first legislative election in November 2008. She replaced longtime Milford Democrat James Amann, who ended his legislative career as the House Speaker and is now...

Since launching three weeks ago, the White House Reality Check website on healthcare reform has been updated several times to debunk a growing number of alleged myths about the Democrats' plan. But the site is still silent on conservatives' charge that the plan will use taxpayer money to cover abortions. It's a stunning omission, given how much the government-funded abortion allegation has dominated this month's congressional town hall meetings on healthcare reform—and given that President Obama himself has called the charge a myth. "You've heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion," he said recently. "Not...

State officials are examining whether public money has been improperly used to pay for Islamic mosques on charter school campuses in Blaine and Inver Grove Heights. Chas Anderson, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, said officials will study Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy's (TiZA) use of state "lease aid'' grants, which were created more than a decade ago to help charter schools rent adequate facilities. "If it is subsidizing a mosque, in our view, that would be a violation of state and federal law,'' Anderson said. The probe is the latest in a series of church-vs.-state conflicts involving TiZA...

NASA needs more cash in order to meet its goal of finding nearby space rocks that could hit Earth in a devastating impact, a new report says. Congress ordered NASA in 2005 to find and track 90 percent of the large asteroids near Earth by 2020, but did not set aside the necessary funds required to do the job, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Academy of Sciences. Without that funding, NASA will not be able to build the new facilities and telescopes required to track potentially threatening asteroids down to the size of about 460 feet...

Kennedy's Daughter Accepts His Medal Of Freedom 'Lion Of The Senate' Will Not Attend The D.C. Ceremony Sen. Edward Kennedy was among 16 people scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on Wednesday. The medal is the nation's highest civilian honor.

When President Obama today awards a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harvey Milk, it may mark the first time in history that the nation's highest civilian award has been granted primarily on the basis of someone's sex life. As the White House announcement explained, "Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977." Yet Milk served in that office for less than a year, so that hardly qualifies him for the Medal of Freedom. Milk was also assassinated...

It's now more than 50 years since the revolution began. Sexual "liberation" has been endlessly ballyhooed by the national media, promoted in the movies, embraced by Playboy guys and Cosmo girls as a freedom more delicious than Eden's apple. No American under 40 can honestly remember a time when sex on TV was taboo, when "living together" meant married, when "gay" meant happy, and when almost every child lived with both parents.   If truth be told, the revolution has been a disaster. Before the push to loosen America's sexual mores really got under way in the 1950s, the...

In an effort to gauge the overall condition of blacks in contemporary America, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman turned yesterday to a pair of longtime haters of the United States: (a) Carl Dix, a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist vanguard dedicated to promoting civil unrest in the United States; and (b) Princeton University professor Cornel West, an avowed Marxist with close personal and ideological ties to the racial arsonist Al Sharpton and the Jew-hating leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan.

Stung by a string of embarrassing personnel moves at the outset of the administration, President Obama has significantly beefed up the number of lawyers working in the White House compared to previous administrations. Administration officials insist the bulking up of the Office of White House Counsel is temporary, but some lawyers from the George W. Bush administration said they suspect one reason for the personnel shift may be a bid to centralize power.

(AP Photo/El Monte Police Department) It all started out with a kick to the head. True, the suspect was not exactly one to elicit sympathy, but that's not the point. A free society cannot tolerate police acting outside the law to administer physical punishment. Except Dean Scoville, "Associate Editor of Police Magazine and a retired patrol supervisor and investigator with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department," disagrees with that: There was a time when post pursuit ass-kickings were obligatory. Cops knew it, suspects knew it, and there are enough old timers on both sides of the fence that will verify the...

WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee may have trouble keeping the promise she made at Michael Jackson's public memorial for a House resolution that "forever" honors the late pop star. Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, took the stage Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and hoisted a framed copy of the resolution, embossed with a gold seal. The measure will be debated on the House floor, she said. For that framed, embossed resolution to be completely legit, it must first get past some opposition. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who called Jackson a "pervert, child molester,...

With Chicago officials in Switzerland promoting Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid at an important site selection meeting, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned that President Obama is creating a new White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport. According to the White House, 'this permanent White House office will promote the values of the Olympic Movement and encourage increased youth participation in athletics. The primary function of the Office will be to enhance awareness of the Olympic Movement through promotion of its fundamental principles at the federal level." From the White House... President Obama Announces New White House Office of Olympic,...

Twenty-five culturally significant recordings — including a 70-year-old radio broadcast of Marian Anderson's recital at the Lincoln Memorial, Dylan Thomas reading of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and Winston Churchill's post-World War II speech that coined the term Iron Curtain — will be preserved in a special sound archive. Every year the Librarian of Congress selects sound recordings to include in the National Recording Registry. This year's batch, being announced Wednesday, also includes signature performances from several artists such as Etta James' "At Last!," The Who's "My Generation" and Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner doing their 2000-year-old man routine. The...

Apparently most of us were ill served by our high school education. But, don't worry, our children will have that fixed for them. You see, we oldsters were thoroughly misinformed into thinking that there was only two genders in the human animal: male and female. But now, through the wonders of the modern, radical re-education racket, comes the new-new way of seeing "a whole world out there full of different genders." Confused? Well, that's because the radical gender lobby hasn't gotten hold of your schooling like it has in Vermont where high schoolers are exposed to the fantasy science of...

In New York yesterday, Joe Biden, Obama's overseer of the spending of the "stimulus" package, acknowledged the following: ... some of this money is going to be wasted ... Obama's words in February: ... unprecedented responsibility and accountability on the spending. Without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud...

Neuroscientists found woman's partner status relevant for her interest in the opposite sex A study by neuroscientist Heather Rupp and her team found that a woman's partner status influenced her interest in the opposite sex. In the study¹, published in the March issue of Human Nature, women both with and without sexual partners showed little difference in their subjective ratings of photos of men when considering such measures as masculinity and attractiveness. However, the women who did not have sexual partners spent more time evaluating photos of men, demonstrating a greater interest in the photos. No such difference was found...

The business world is crawling with affable, industrious, intelligent people with nothing to distinguish them from ten thousand other affable, industrious and intelligent people, but who very much would like to be rich. Except by winning the equivalent of a lottery or marrying up, their chances of becoming rich are quite poor. They joint a fraternity at college to make contacts, and went to business school to network. They have no friends, only contacts, as their entire social life from freshman year onward has been a struggle to get to know people who might help them. They live in silent...

BEVERLY, Mass. -- The former director of the Beverly Public Library who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography wants to keep his $31,000 annual public pension. Thomas Scully has filed a lawsuit in Salem Superior Court claiming the city Retirement Board has no right to revoke his pension on the grounds of "moral turpitude." Scully's suit filed Friday claims he would suffer "severe financial loss" if he loses his pension because he is unlikely to land another job in his field. Scully's pension was approved in May 2005, after his arrest, but his lawyer tells The Salem News the decision...

César Chávez Elementary School 825 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA. 94110 Voice/TTY (415) 695-5765 Fax (415) 695-5843 Email: sch603@muse.sfusd.edu Silent Language of the Soul (©1990), mural by Juana Alicia & Susan Cervantes, welcomes diversity in our school. Full image (500 K) Si Se Puede (©1996) mural by Susan Cervantes, keeps César Chávez' s struggle for justice and dignity alive. Full image (340K) Our Mission Statement César Chávez School is a community of life-long learners, achievers and activists who support self determination. We incorporate and integrate academic skills, leadership development, and cultural awareness that is relative to the reality of our...

Memphis, TN -- A new undercover videotape shows staff at a Tennessee Planned Parenthood abortion clinic urging a client to lie about her potential sexual abuse so she could get an abortion. A girl who said she is 14 and sexually abused by a 31-year-old man was told to hide the information from a judge. The staff members at the nation's largest abortion business told the young woman to conceal the information so a judge would approve her request for an abortion without parental involvement, which is require by state law except in emergency cases. "Don't mention it. Just say...

Nadya Suleman will probably sign a deal very soon to feature her and her 14 children in a reality TV show, sources tell PEOPLE exclusively. Czech says Suleman doesn't have health insurance and that all medical costs associated with delivering the octuplets on Jan. 26 were funded by taxpayers through state Medi-Cal.

"As ALG News mentioned last week, Rep. Virginia Foxx's (R-VA) amendment banning so-called “volunteer” organizations from using taxpayer funds to political purposes was stripped from its parent bill in the Senate, and replaced by an amendment allowing those organizations to skirt the law and continue lobbying. This week, the House will approve the Senate version, and President Obama will no doubt sign it shortly thereafter." "The battle to kill this bill in Congress is very likely over. Unless the Blue Dogs can muster enough support to halt Speaker Pelosi's march to madness, the American taxpayer will have to pony up...

CHICAGO Newspapers perform a public service for democracy and should be allowed to operate as tax-exempt non-profits, U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D.-Md., proposed Tuesday. Cardin introduced a bill that would explicitly include newspapers among organizations eligible for 501(c)(3) status. The non-profit status is the same that public radio and television have now. The legislation would give a national green light for newspapers to adopt the so-called Low Profit Limited Liability Company business model, often shortened to L3C. The L3C model, which the Newspaper Guild supports as an alternative newspaper ownership model, is the subject of a feature story in the...

Franklin County deputies accused of tampering with inmate's food Tuesday, March 24, 2009 7:40 AM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Two deputies assigned to the Downtown Franklin County jail are being investigated after being accused of tampering with an inmate's food. According to sources at the jail, the deputies fed a sandwich to an inmate after having another inmate touch the sandwich with his penis. Sources also said that the deputies used a cell phone to take pictures of the incident. The Franklin County sheriff's office confirmed that the deputies are being investigated and have been reassigned to the control center, where...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new report recently highlighted at LifeNews.com indicates Planned Parenthood is increasingly relying on the dangerous mifepristone (RU 486) abortion drug. Now, a pro-life group is accusing the abortion business of putting women at risk by more frequently employing the drugs.While Planned Parenthood is cutting its total number of centers, the number of abortion facilities is on the rise -- it jumped to 295 last year from 287 the year prior.While the number of surgical abortion centers it runs dropped from 179 to 174 during the last year, the number of places with the mifepristone...

RALEIGH -- Home-school groups and conservatives across the country are infuriated by a Wake County judge's declaration that he will make a North Raleigh mother stop teaching her children at home and send them to public schools. As part of a continuing divorce case, Wake District Court Judge Ned Mangum said last Friday that it would be in the "best interests" of Venessa Mills' three children to go to public school this fall. Mangum said at the hearing that while the children are "thriving," they need to be exposed to the "real world." "It will do them a great benefit...

Dori writes... In these brutal economic times, a lot of people are upside down in their mortgages and are losing their homes. But there's one group of people who don't have to worry about that - the residents of 1811 Eastlake. The housing project for chronic alcoholics in Downtown Seattle. While I support many shelters and job training programs for the homeless, this project has always struck me as misguided - public funds are spent on housing that allows alcoholics to drink in their publicly subsidized apartments. That's why I found these pictures so disturbing. A Downtown Emergency Service Center...

BORN IN HAWAII – the fictional movie. Verifying President Barack Obama's birthplace is getting to be as difficult as finding D.B. Cooper. But getting a look at Obama's real birth certificate evidently is of no importance to some folks. Students in the University of Hawaii-Manoa Academy for Creative Media Program are making "Born In Hawaii" – a fictional story based loosely on the nurses who worked at Kapiolani Medical Center when Barack Obama was born. The students currently are casting and soliciting donations from the community....

Obama to Sign Executive Order Monday Opening Public Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030611.html By John-Henry Westen WASHINGTON, March 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - President Barack Obama plans to rescind the Bush policy limiting federal funding for embryo destructive research on Monday. The Bush policy had allowed federal funding for experiments on already existing lines of embryos, but forbade the funds from being used to create new embryos for experimentation. According to news reports, a signing ceremony will take place on Monday at 11 am. Details about the Executive Order are not available, but according to the Washington Post, "proponents...

The economic stimulus package Congress passed last month includes $50 million in emergency funding for the National Endowment for the Arts — money some legislators didn't think belonged in the bill. Doubters and supporters both, though, should find food for thought in a timely new show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum called "1934: A New Deal For Artists." The show looks at the first time American artists — thousands of them — got direct government support. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, like today's lawmakers, caught some flak for wanting to include artists in his relief program. He justified his decision,...

The impending demise by budget cuts of Little Owls Learning Center at Hartford Public High School has people howling about the potential consequences for unwed teen mothers and their children. Their outrage is misplaced. Little Owls is a daycare that rewards adolescent moms for believing that bringing children into this world, despite lacking the wisdom and wherewithal to raise them properly, might be fun. Staffed by a teacher and two paraprofessionals, Little Owls serves 10 students at a cost of $16,000 each and has 22 on its waiting list. If the elimination of funding holds, the moms would have to...

San Diego, Calif., Feb 19, 2009 / 09:45 pm (CNA).- A California jury found on Tuesday that four firefighters, who were ordered by their superiors to participate in the city’s “gay pride” parade were sexually harassed, and awarded them monetary damages from the city. The case dates back to July 2007 when four San Diego firefighters were informed by their superiors that they would be participating in San Diego’s annual “Gay Pride” parade.  Though the four men protested, they were ordered to dress up in full uniform and ride on the fire engine along the parade route. During the...

From the U.S. Postal Service to the Executive Office of the President, thousands of federal workers have not paid their 2007 federal income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service is trying to collect billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from nearly half a million federal employees. According to IRS records, 171,549 current federal workers did not voluntarily pay their federal income taxes in 2007. The same is true for 37,752 active duty military and nearly 200,000 retired civilian and military personnel.

'Gay' group too hot for U.N. – but not for Obama Administration voted to grant official status to society with possible pedophilia ties A homosexual group with possible ties to pedophilia may be too scandalous for the United Nations – but not for the Obama administration. The U.N.'s Non-Governmental Organization Committee, or NGO, rejected an application of the Brazilian Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transvestite and Transexual Association, or ABGLT, because its founder is under investigation for promoting pedophilia on his blog, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute reports. "The UK pushed hard for the group to be accepted," C-FAM President...

Hundreds of students have allegedly been beaten by teachers, coaches and staff at Chicago Public Schools. 2 Investigator Dave Savini continues his ongoing investigation involving the illegal use corporal punishment. SNIP An exclusive CBS 2 investigation discovered Treveon Martin is one of at least 818 Chicago Public School students, since 2003, to allege being battered by a teacher or an aide, coach, security guard, or even a principal. In most of those cases - 568 of them - Chicago Public School investigators determined the children were telling the truth. SNIP The 2 Investigators found reports of students beaten with broomsticks,...

More on this tonight at 5pm on Fox News.. The audio is from the inauguration. Gore was speaking to a group of young children about Global warming and told them not to listen to their parents. AUDIO AT LINK