Free Republic

When asked about second term failures, President Barack Obama responded by saying, "Maybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly."

(CNSNews.com) - Federal spending was up $30.5 billion in the first five months of fiscal 2013 compared to the first five months of fiscal 2012, according to newly released data from the U.S. Treasury. The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and runs through Sept. 30. In the first five months of fiscal 2012 (October through February), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement, total federal spending was approximately $1,473,999,000,000.00. In the first five months of fiscal 2013, total federal spending was $1,504,547,000,000.00. Thus, federal spending was $30,548,000,000.00 more in the first five months of fiscal 2013 than it was...

This is a somewhat famous campaign speech from Al Gore in 1992 that seems more relevant today than it was in 1992. He starts out telling his supporters to imagine how they'd feel if they woke up on a cold November morning, opened up their newspapers and read "Four More Years" (of George H.W. Bush). Then he goes into his riff which I am trying to transcribe here: Unemployment around the country has gone up. The number of jobs has gone down. The trade deficit has gone up. Personal income has gone down. The budget deficit has gone up. The...

I have this constantly popping network popup that wont go away. I cannot find it on my computer but every minute or two it pops up asking me to do something with the network password. I have had thoughts of what I would like to do with it, but not approptiate for this board. I do not have accounts anymore at hostmonster, a child signed me up, did not know until last week that I had been paying for them since 2009. They were never activated. Have kid for sale too. It says ENTER NETWORK PASSWORD server: host385.hostmonster.com user: an...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is giving city workers an important health choice: enroll in a new wellness plan, expected to be unveiled Friday, or pay a higher premium. The price if they don't enroll: $50 a month. The program includes an initial screening that focuses on preventative care for asthma, heart disease and diabetes. City employees would then receive wellness training to achieve long-term health goals, including weight loss. Smokers wouldn't be penalized, but they would be encouraged to quit. Advisers overseeing the program will monitor progress on a bimonthly basis, and those who reach their goals could see their health...

WEST CHESTER, Ohio (The Blaze/AP) — Briefcases with handwritten signs attached were left at the front door of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio office, bringing out a bomb squad. Investigators in the Cincinnati suburb of West Chester tell multiple media outlets that the bomb squad blew the cases apart on Sunday and found they contained only papers. No one was hurt. WCPO-TV captured the bomb squad robot removing the briefcases and exploding them:

Chicago - The number of Americans newly infected with HIV remained stable between 2006 and 2009, but infections rose nearly 50 percent among young black gay and bisexual men, U.S. experts said on Wednesday. New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal progress since the peak of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. But the sharp increases in infection rates among young black men who have sex with men show there is much more work to do, they said.(Snip) While blacks represent 14 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 44 percent of new HIV

Excellent political ad.

Obama tells America that we need to "up our game" in order get the world to "buy America". Link is to the television station web site, but the story was supplied to them by AP, so this is not copied from the web site or story.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.) told CNSNews.com in an interview that he believes the Justice Department is covering up information relevant to a congressional investigation of an operation in which the department knowingly allowed intermediaries of Mexican drug cartels to purchase guns at licensed firearms dealers in the United States and then get away without being arrested or the guns being retrieved. Last December, two of those guns ended up at the scene of the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was killed by alleged agents

San Diego, Calif. - One of the most notorious Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East is reportedly making a new home just south of the border. The Shi’a Muslim group Hezbollah is “recognized by many experts as the “A” team of Muslim terrorist organizations,” a former U.S. intelligence official told 10News in San Diego. Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto lists “Israel’s final departure from Lebanon as a prelude to its final obliteration” as one of its four main goals,

It happened with immigration. It happened with health care. And now, thank goodness, it is happening with the Obama land grabs. States are rising up to challenge federal abuses. More power to them. I’ve been reporting on the stealth Obama land and ocean grabs for the past year now. Quick review: Last August, I told you about the “Great Outdoors Initiative” to lock up more open spaces through executive order. This came on top on top of a separate, property-usurping initiative exposed by GOP Rep. Robert Bishop and Sen. Jim DeMint earlier this spring. According to an internal, 21-page Obama...

RUSH: Here's Palin. Now, I'm playing these sound bites here because Obama's delivering himself to us on a silver platter. Folks, I'm serious. "Obama Says We Cannot Spend More Than We Take In" bill. Pass it. We simply reduce spending to current expenditures, current revenues, that's it, and credit him for the inspiration, make them defend it. That's what I don't understand is our inability. I don't know why we can't take it to 'em. I'm exempting Paul Ryan from this 'cause he's done it, but why can't we take what this guy says and run it right back at...

Remember the good ol days? Mom's smoked and drank when pregnant, you were raised on home cooking, your crib was covered with Lead Base paint, rode a bike with no helmet on gravel roads, you went outside till the street lights came on, your parents had no childproof lids or seat belts in cars, you got spanked when you misbehaved, had 3 TV channels you got up to change, school always started w/the Pledge of Allegiance, & stores were closed Sunday,you drank water out of a creek or out of water hose and YOU STILL TURNED OUT OK, if you...

Palin Wows Wisconsin Tea Partiers With Blistering Speech; To Obama: 'You Ignored Us in 2010, You Cannot Ignore Us in 2012' from Breitbart on Vimeo.

Feeling pain at the pump? Gas prices have doubled since Mr. Obama took office. According to the GasBuddy gasoline price tracking web site, the price of a gallon of regular gas was around $1.79 when Mr. Obama took office. Today the national average is $3.58. The lowest average price in the continental United States is $3.31 in Tulsa Oklahoma, the highest is $4.14 in Santa Barbara, CA. Four-dollar-a-gallon gas has arrived on average throughout California, and a number of other states are headed in that direction. Consumer price index (CPI) figures from February show an unadjusted 12 month

Andrea Mitchell and her "Friends" show their love.

Wow... I only bought 30 - 40 oz of Silver as a hedge against inflation or if all hell broke lose. I can not believe it blew past $30 Oz and shows no sign of stopping....or perceived that way. I keep reading about a 16:1 ratio of Gold to Silver on this planet. Does that mean Silver could go for around $100 per ounce when all is said and done? Are more industries using Silver, people investing in it or the dollar dropping like a rock that is causing the rise? I assume all three but I would like to...

News Desk: Breaking News! In a condemnable incident, an unidentified low-profile man ripped pages out of a Quran and burnt them outside the proposed Community Center and Mosque near Ground Zero. Even though Pastor of the Florida Church Terry Jones cancelled his plan to burn the Quran due to international pressure and criticism, the unidentified zealot did not bother and set the Quran pages on fire. "If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Quran. Americans should never be afraid to give their opinion", he said. The news was first reported by the New York Daily News. Even...

CLEVELAND In his last act as a Los Angeles Dodger, Manny Ramirez lived down to his reputation for disrespectful, immature behavior. On Sunday, he was ejected after arguing a called strike on the lone pitch of his only at-bat. Within hours of Ramirez’s all-too-predictable exit, the baseball world learned that he was bound for the Chicago White Sox. Great news for Manny, right? Here was his latest — maybe final — chance at reputation salvation. Hop on the next flight, say how excited you are to play in Chicago, get in the lineup as quickly as possible and gap a...

The number of reported Dutch cases of euthanasia or assisted suicide rose 13 percent last year, the government said on Wednesday, spurring talk of a possible “euthanasia hospital” to help people end their lives. The annual report of the regional commissions that oversee the Netherlands’ euthanasia law said there were 2,636 cases in 2009, the vast majority of them euthanasia, or “mercy killing“, as opposed to assisted suicide, or helping someone to die. That represented about 2 per cent of all Dutch deaths last year, based on figures from Statistics Netherlands. Of the cases, slightly over 80 percent were cancer...

President Obama was believed to be avoiding Alexi Giannoulias. Why? Well, Giannoulias, who is vying for Obama's old Illinois Senate seat and is a former basketball buddy of the president, has become something of a political toxin. It became public that the former banker serviced loans to mobsters and crooks, and Giannoulias's own family bank collapsed, creating yet another political embarrassment for the candidate who is currently Illinois's state treasurer. But Obama seems to have had a change of heart, and later this week he will host a political fundraiser for Giannoulias in Chicago. Will, perhaps, this latest news story...

Filmmaker James Cameron garnered some headlines recently when he called BP "morons" for their handling of the Gulf oil spill (Cameron was asked to offer advice on how to fix the problem). "Over the last few weeks I've watched as we all have with growing sort of horror and heartache watching what's happening in the Gulf and thinking, those morons don't know what they're doing," Cameron said last week. Now, Cameron is clarifying his remarks, telling CNN's Larry King that his words were "taken out of context."

WTH is going on with oil... Down another $5 today. Also, it is down $25 over the last three weeks but no change at the pump... why? Memorial day weekend? Is this due to our strnger dollar?

O'Reilly! Just shut up!

I’d say this video is “unbelievable,” but it’s not unbelievable that members of the most corrupt Congress in the history of the known universe don’t care about laws, rules, procedures, or our Constitution. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), who you might remember as a disgraced former judge who was impeached (by a Democrat Congress) for taking bribes: There ain’t no rules here, we’re trying to accomplish something. . . .All this talk about rules. . . .When the deal goes down . . . we make ‘em up as we go along.Video here.

"UP cops nab IM terrorist planning aerial strike" Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, TNN, 2 February 2010, 01:48am IST SNIPPET: "LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: The arrest of Shehzad alias Pappu — one of the key accused in the September 2008 serial blasts in Delhi and the Batla House encounter — by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) of UP Police from Azamgarh on Monday evening is being seen as a major breakthrough in exposing a module that was planning to unleash air strikes. Shehzad, intelligence agencies had recently discovered, had undergone a training to fly planes from an institute in Bangalore and had surfaced as a...

(IsraelNN.com) The United States is “fed up” with Israelis who "adopt the right ideas too late," and also with the “Palestinians who always miss opportunities,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel angrily told an Israeli diplomat recently. IDF Army Radio reported that Emanuel said this in a meeting with Israel's Consul in Los Angeles, Yaki Dayan, two and a half weeks ago. Dayan reported to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that Emanuel said: “We are fed up with you Israelis who adopt the correct ideas several months too late, so that they become inefficient. In addition, we are also...

WILMINGTON, Del. - Consumer bankruptcies soared 41 percent in September from a year before and climbed from August, as high unemployment and the housing market crash took their toll, the American Bankruptcy Institute said on Friday. September filings totaled 124,790, the fourth-highest month since the bankruptcy law changed in 2005.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Worker productivity, the single biggest factor determining living standards, grew at the fastest pace in nearly six years in the spring while labor costs fell by the most in nine years, as companies slashed costs to survive the recession.

I don't know how many of you saw the movie "Up" (Disney/Pixar). It helps to have kids. It was good -- and surprisingly anxiety-inducing. Anyway, not to give much away, a waterfall in Venezuela is a significant plot device. When I saw both trailers and the actual movie, I said to myself "Obviously inspired by Angel Falls". I was wrong. Turns out that the real waterfall inspiration, I think, is Salto Kukenam (or Kukenan, or Kukenaam) -- not sure. From what I can tell, Salto Kukenam falls from one of the smaller tepuis -- a larger one hosts Angel Falls....

Doors are opening my children " Doors ARE opening "! But you must " remain " ever watchful attending to my wants( will ) for your needs . Do you see my will even now (( ( pressing ) )) into your lives ? Do not resist this but come into agreement with me for as I met Jacob so I shall meet you yet do not wrestle or ponder for my will is for you to overcome without hostility , grief or intervention . Allow me to have my will in your lives that your hip , yeah your...

Washington conservatives who dissent from the party line are often accused of selling out our principles in hope of snagging an invitation to a Georgetown cocktail party. It costs much, much more than that to buy Washington's pillars of conservative orthodoxy. Thanks to the brave people at FedEx, the whole world now knows exactly how much more... When you hear a member of Congress described as more or less conservative than another, it's the ACU's voting index that is being cited. ACU sponsors the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, the biggest event on conservatism's annual calendar... The leaders of...

Would Congress ever pass legislation that would allow the executive to determine at its own discretion whether political opponents had crossed the line into domestic terrorists and build camps in which to keep them? Sounds like something out of 20th-century totalitarian systems or dystopian fiction. Mark Tapscott says it’s not fiction , and he warns readers about an effort by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) to do just that: Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the...

Bodies Dug Up, Plots Resold at Historic Cemetery: Police As many as 100 bodies disinterred at Alsip's Burr Oak Cemetery By BJ LUTZ and PHIL ROGERS Updated 6:19 PM CDT, Wed, Jul 8, 2009 As many as 100 human bodies may have been dug up from a South suburban cemetery and the burial plots resold, investigators said Wednesday. Often called the first African-American cemetery in Chicago, Alsip's Burr Oak Cemetery has a storied past and is the final resting place for several notables, including boxing great Ezzard Charles and blues legends Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington. Emmett Till, whose murder...

Colby Curtin got her final wish. The 10-year-old girl desperately wanted to see the new Disney-Pixar movie, "Up." But the cancer-stricken girl was too sick to go to a theater. Thanks to a family friend who got in touch with the movie studio Pixar, an employee of the Emeryville-based company arrived at Colby's home with a DVD copy of the movie, The Orange County Register reported Friday...

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Colby Curtin got her final wish. The 10-year-old girl desperately wanted to see the new Disney-Pixar movie, "Up." But the cancer-stricken girl was too sick to go to a theater. On June 10, an employee of Pixar Animation Studios, which is based in the San Francisco Bay city of Emeryville, flew with a DVD copy to Colby's home. By then, the girl had only hours to live, The Orange County Register reported Friday. While waiting for the movie to arrive, Colby's mother, Lisa, said she asked her daughter: "Do you think you can hang on?"...

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing – a movie. From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film. After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying...

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing – a movie. From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film. After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying...

Here's a movie that is a 2009 "must-see". Pixar's "UP" has everything, charm, adventure, laughs, insight, truth and an appeal to all ages. Scratch that. "UP" does seem to be missing curse words and sex scenes and still it entertains. Check out who this movie's protagonist is based on in terms of resemblence. Hint-he's a famous journalist and "UP's" elderly adventurer looks exactly like him.

The Central Intelligence Agency gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., advanced warning before CIA Chief Leon Panetta sent a memo to employees at the spy agency that countered Pelosi's claim that the agency lied to Congress about waterboarding.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati features on the cover of Newsweek's latest edition, with the US weekly drawing parallels between her and US President Barack Obama - in their rise to political heights though belonging to the bottom of the social ladder. However, the weekly with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief's photo on its cover design, says Mayawati is a "bigger underdog" and a "bigger threat" to the "established order than Obama was". While commenting her "suspiciously ostentatious fortune" and her "limited accomplishments" on behalf of the socially oppressed Dalits, whose cause she champions, the weekly has said her...

Click on the image below to watch video.

Who would have thought 55 days into this administration we would be asking the question, what did he know and when did he know it? Word that a provision in the stimulus bill gave the green light for AIG to hand out bonuses using taxpayer money sent the media bloodhounds hot on the trail of whoever is the culprit. For a time, it looked like Senate Banking chairman Chris Dodd would take the fall, but after 24 hours of twisting in the wind, Dodd said the change that exempted past agreements to pay bonuses was made at the request of...

Click here for Pixar goodness!

Dow Jones Industrial Average(DJI: ^DJI) Index Value: 6,873.37 Trade Time: 4:00pm ET Change: 147.35 (2.19%) Prev Close: 6,898.63 Open: 6,726.50 Day's Range: 6,726.42 - 6,979.22 52wk Range: 6,661.74 - 13,191.50 Quotes delayed, except where indicated otherwise. For consolidated real-time quotes (incl. pre/post market data), sign up for a free trial of Real-time Quotes.

With the mega-pork, er, stimulus bill done, Democrats will now turn to regulating political speech they don't like. That is, they're revving up to resurrect the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Created in 1949, the doctrine required broadcast radio and TV outlets (then relatively few in number) to present balanced viewpoints on issues. The FCC repealed it in 1987, noting the dramatically expanded media landscape of the intervening four decades allowed sufficient competition of ideas.

In a stunning admission, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) on Friday morning blasted his GOP colleagues for not doing enough to help the committee financially, and he said he would have to scale back the NRSC’s independent expenditure budget as a result.

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here. Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons...

PITTSBURGH - John McCain called Tuesday for the federal government to free people from paying gasoline taxes this summer and ensure that college students can secure loans this fall, proposals aimed at stemming the public's pain now from the troubled economy. In the longer-term, the certain Republican presidential nominee said he would double the tax exemption for dependent children and offer people the option of choosing a simpler tax system. "We know from experience that no serious reform of the current tax code will come out of Congress, so now it is time to turn the decision over to the...