Free Republic

Sarah Palin fans can’t seem to wait until Sunday to get their place in line for Sarah Palin’s autograph. Palin will stop in Barnes and Noble at Valley View in Roanoke, part of a stop for a tour to sell her book, “Going Rogue.“ More than a dozen people camped out just outside the bookstore. The first person in line got there at 8 a.m. on Saturday. “She has a lot of things I really admire but she has a very much of strong backbone,“ said Sunhee Muskopf, the first person in line. Others had to figure out ways to...

Roanoke, VA - More than 1,000 people are expected to swarm Valley View Mall this weekend for a chance to meet former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Palin will be at the Barnes and Noble Book Store to sign copies of her book, "Going Rogue." In the event of rain, Valley View mall has agreed to open its doors at 7:00 a.m. so people can duck inside. Palin is expected to address the crowd in front of the store, following her book-signing. The store will start handing out a limited number of wristbands at 6:00 a.m. A Barnes of Noble...

Note: The following news brief is a quote: http://ny1.com/8-queens-news-content/top_stories/109259/queens-imam-involved-in-terror-investigation-granted-holiday-travel 11/20/2009 09:14 AM Queens Imam Involved In Terror Investigation Granted Holiday Travel By: NY1 News The Queens imam under house arrest for allegedly interfering with a terror investigation will spend Thanksgiving in Virginia. According to reports, Ahmad Afzali was given permission to travel to his father’s home for the holiday. A federal judge in Brooklyn approved the trip after a request was filed by Afzali’s attorney. Federal prosecutors reportedly did not oppose the request, but the office of pretrial services was concerned his electronic ankle monitoring bracelet would be out of...

BULLETIN -- NEW YORK POLICE AND FBI RAID HOMES IN QUEENS IN TERRORISM INVESTIGATION.6 minutes ago from BNO Headquarters

RICHMOND | Civil rights organizations are asking Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to sign an executive order restoring the rights of nearly 300,000 felons before he leaves office in January. Virginia and Kentucky are the only two states that permanently strip felons of their civil rights, such as voting, serving on juries or holding public office. In Virginia, the power to restore those rights lies solely with the governor. Mr. Kaine has restored rights to more than 4,000, felons, a greater number than under any other Virginia governor. He and former Gov. Mark Warner, a fellow Democrat, restored more altogether than...

DINWIDDIE, Va. – The driver of a Miley Cyrus tour bus was killed Friday when the bus overturned, but the 16-year-old "Hannah Montana" star wasn't on board, Virginia State Police said. Sgt. Thomas Molnar said the bus ran off the left side of Interstate 85, struck an embankment and overturned. The accident occurred around 8:15 a.m. in Dinwiddie County, about 40 miles south of Richmond. Speed and weather weren't considered factors. The driver, William G. Douglas, 53, of Austin, Texas, died at the scene, police said.

The wife of the most senior Republican in the Senate was arrested Wednesday night after her vehicle struck a parked car. Police said Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar's wife, Charlene, drove her car into the parked vehicle just after 6:15 p.m. Wednesday in their McLean, Va., neighborhood. No injuries were reported.

Archers will take to tree stands in Colvin Run Mill Park and Colvin Run Stream Valley in coming weeks to reduce the area’s burgeoning deer population, which poses a threat to motorists, hikers, flora and fauna, Fairfax County officials said. The Fairfax County Police Department’s Animal Control Division, working in conjunction with the Fairfax County Park Authority, began allowing select hunting groups into the wooded park areas on Nov. 16. Archery hunts also will be held at Laurel Hill Park in Lorton. Officials estimate the county is home to about 25,000 deer, or 60 per square mile, which is roughly...

Be there!

WASHINGTON, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Two U.S. Senators on Monday unveiled bipartisan legislation aimed at doubling nuclear power in 20 years and increasing funding for research into low carbon sources of energy. Sponsored by Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander and Virginia Democrat Jim Webb, the bill would provide $100 billion in loan guarantees for carbon-free electricity projects, adding to the existing $47 billion loan guarantee program. Although the additional loan guarantees would not be limited to nuclear power, the nuclear industry would likely be the major recipient of the extra money because it is one of the most established low carbon...

'Passionate response' at meeting leads to closure of park site Planned deer hunts in two Fairfax County public parks are riling animal-rights advocates and residents who say the county's new bow-and-arrow deer-culling program is inhumane and dangerous. Starting before dawn Monday, a handful of archers from Suburban Whitetail Deer Management of Northern Virginia, a nonprofit volunteer deer hunting group, went to the Colvin Run Stream Valley and Colvin Run Mill parks and hunted deer from 20- to 30-foot-high deer stands. It was unclear how many were killed, said Eric Huppert, a founder and president of the deer hunting group, but...

The FDA's website lists the Swine Flu H1n1 vaccines ingredients which include mercury, squalene and formaldehyde. Research the ingredients for yourself. Click here to find out what scientists have discovered about damaging effects of mercury on the brain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSKvDQ9OkNM Although Dystonia is a less prevalant disorder, autism rates in America's children have skyrocketed. 1 in 150 children in America are diagnosed with autism. Mercury has been proven to cause nonsocial and uncontrollable behavior in primates. Scientific studies has proven mercury poisoning causes neurological damage... Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements...

Senator, As a Virginia voter I am writing you to ask that you oppose the “healthcare reform” package your Democratic colleagues in the House and President Obama have introduced. This legislation is harmful to Virginians, will raise our taxes, and create a massive federal bureaucracy that will restrict patient choice. Please vote against any attempt to federalize our medical care system.

NEW YORK (AP) — In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques, a New York City skyscraper and 100 acres in Prince William County owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. Prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets.

RICHMOND, Va. - With his state under an emergency declaration because of heavy rain and floods Thursday, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was in Arkansas for a Democratic fundraiser. Kaine is chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He appeared Thursday with Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe at a closed $250-per-ticket luncheon at a home in Little Rock. -snip-

America’s mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong. Like the ambitions of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del Padre’s success can be measured by upgrades...

“I wish the president would have started the debate by explaining to the American people that our current health care system is not financially sustainable, for even another decade,” Mr. Warner said. “Driving down health care costs should have been the focus of the debate.”

JARRATT, Va. -- John Allen Muhammad, the sniper who kept the Washington region paralyzed by fear for three weeks as he and a young accomplice gunned down people at random, was executed Tuesday night by lethal injection.

Here is video of a Virginia Prison Spokesman giving a detailed preview of the upcoming execution of D.C. Sniper Mastermind John Allen Muhammad, who will be executed tonight at 9:00 PM ET. . . . (VIDEO)

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) denied clemency for John Allen Muhammad on Tuesday, clearing the way for the sniper to be executed by lethal injection at 9 p.m. and putting an end to one of the most trying local criminal cases in U.S. history. Muhammad, 48, was convicted of capital murder in the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers on Oct. 9, 2002, at a gas station outside of Manassas, part of a spree that left 10 people dead in the Washington area and included shootings in several other states. A jury in Virginia Beach, where the trial was moved...

t - 3 hrs and counting down..

Hello, Mike Ruane here to talk about the DC sniper case and answer your questions. _______________________

This is a big week for the Virginia Tech chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. It's Defense Education Week, and the student group, which has 100 to 200 members, has organized a week's worth of seminars and gatherings in support of concealed carry on Virginia college campuses. Monday night's featured speaker was Philip Van Cleave, president of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League. Earlier Monday, I spoke to Ken Stanton, 32, a serious-sounding engineering graduate student and the vice president of the Virginia Tech chapter of the concealed carry group. Here's his argument in favor of guns on...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to block the execution of John A. Muhammad, the sniper who terrorized the Washington area seven years ago. The step cleared the way for Mr. Muhammad to be put to death on Tuesday unless Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia intervenes. The court did not comment in refusing to hear Mr. Muhammad’s appeal, but three justices objected to the relative haste accompanying the execution. Justice John Paul Stevens complained that “under our normal practice,” Mr. Muhammad’s petition for the court to take his case would have been discussed at the justices’ conference scheduled...

The alleged Fort Hood shooter apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there. Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded 29 at the Texas military base, held his mother's funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31,...

Army massacre fiend Nidal Malik Hasan attended a Virginia mosque at the same time as two of the 9/11 hijackers -- and the FBI is now investigating whether there is a connection between the men, an official confirmed yesterday. Maj. Hasan -- the Army psychiatrist accused of fatally shooting 13 people and wounding 29 others at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday -- had held his mother's funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., in May 2001. The mosque's imam at the time was the ultraradical Anwar Aulaqi, thought to have ties to Osama bin...

FORT HOOD, Texas (Nov. 8) – A key U.S. senator said Sunday he would begin an investigation into whether the Army missed signs that the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood had embraced an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology. Sen. Joe Lieberman's call for the investigation came as word surfaced that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there. Whether Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a...

Terrorist Islamic Center Remains Off Limits Major Hasan and 9/11 Ops Shared Prayer Mats by Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org What is taking place in the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia?What is being taught within this $6 million facility, replete with traditional minarets?What are the ties between members of this radical mosque to terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda?This mosque located in President Barack Obama’s backyard has been a magnet for militant Islamists from the time of its construction in 1983. It has been established and sustained by wealthy Saudi Arabian dignitaries and businessmen, who uphold...

Barack Obama and the Democrats want you to know they had a good week. Last Tuesday Republicans threw away a New York congressional seat they had held for a century, preferring to fight each other than win an easy contest. Excellent, say Democrats. Civil war in the Republican party augurs well for next year’s mid-term elections. What’s that, you say? Oh, yes, Democrats did lose the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, with huge swings to the other side, but this was to be expected with the economy in such bad shape. Read nothing into that, say Democratic strategists. Still...

Last Tuesday’s election in Virginia has been reported by some as a vote of no confidence in the Obama administration. Maybe it was – but a closer look indicates that seven of the nine incumbents who lost were caught flat footed on gun rights. . . . Philip Van Cleave, President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. feels that "the results show that this election was open season on anti-gun incumbents. The antis have lost at least five reliable anti-gun votes in the already pro-gun House of Delegates, and their perennial bill to restrict private firearm sales at gun...

The media has made little mention of the fact that Nidal Malik Hasan and his family belong to the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church Va.. Dar al-Hijrah is a turnstile for terrorists and terror. Remarkably, four of the 9/11 hijackers briefly lived in the town of Falls Church, Virginia, three blocks from the WAMY office headed by Abdullah bin Laden. All four attended the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church Va. Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center had members like: Osama Bin Laden's nephew Abdullah bin Laden. http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=abdullah_bin_laden Sheikh Mohammed al-Hanooti, who was named as a co-conspirator in the...

In November 2008, 658,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 782,000 did so in Virginia. In November 2009, 212,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 198,000 did so in Virginia. In other words, young voter turnout this year was down two-thirds in New Jersey and three-quarters in Virginia

And so a personnel file already teeming with red flags gets another giant one. If you’re wondering how a British newspaper managed to track down this information when the U.S. military apparently couldn’t, you’re not alone. There’s no question now that we need congressional hearings into how the army missed the warning signs on Hasan, especially given the suspicions as to why they might have looked the other way. Chop chop, Messrs. Boehner and Cantor. Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in...

U.S. Rep. Glenn Nye announced Saturday that he will vote no on the House health care reform bill. He cited costs to small businesses and cuts to hospitals as primary reasons the bill will not get his support. Though he says the latest version of the bill does achieve many health care reform goals, he believes it will not reduce the cost of health care for families, taxpayers and small businesses. A provision in the bill that Nye believes could lead to nearly $20 million in cuts for the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD) was also grounds for...

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is planning a second anti-health care reform Tea Party at the Capitol -- this one scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday -- approximately the time when the House is due to vote on Democrats' public option bill, POLITICO's Jake Sherman reports. King and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) organized a rally Thursday that drew thousands to the west front of the Capitol, drawing chants of “Kill the Bill.” There were a handful of arrests. “We can kill this bill and stop the government takeover of health care,” King said in a news release. “We need the help of...

Virginia Tech this morning confirmed that Fort Hood shooting suspect Nadal Malik Hasan graduated from the university in 1995. Here's the full news release. Virginia Tech has confirmed with the United States Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., that the alleged shooter at Fort Hood, Texas, once attended Virginia Tech. According to Virginia Tech records, Nidal Malik Hasan first enrolled at Virginia Tech for Summer Session II in 1992, and completed coursework in Spring Semester 1995. He received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in biochemistry from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He minored in biology...

New York Daily News SNIPPET: "NEW YORK — El Salvadoran leaders of the MS-13 gang allegedly put out a contract on the federal agent responsible for a crackdown on its New York factions, the Daily News has learned. The brazen plot to assassinate the unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was revealed in an arrest warrant for reputed gang member Walter (Duke) Torres. Torres tipped authorities to the plan after he and four other MS-13 members were stopped by NYPD detectives for hassling passersby on Northern Blvd. in Queens last month."

Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008...

In Ohio, citizens marched to the polls on Tuesday and voted to allow gambling casinos in the state. This was obviously a message to President Obama that independent voters are not happy with the way the health care bill is going. Really, I don’t see how else you can interpret it. Ohioans were looking forward to the lower insurance costs that would come with a robust public option, and if the president can’t deliver, they’re planning to pay their future medical bills with their winnings at the roulette wheel. Also, people here in Cincinnati rejected a proposal that would have...

In the process, they blew the opportunity to send a solid Reaganite to Washington. Now it turns out Dede is a turncoat (so much for party loyalty). Again, the fact that Doug Hoffman, an unknown, lost by only four percentage points clearly demonstrates a shift to the Right—not necessarily to Republicans.

In an RV swing through Northern Virginia in late August, there wasn't really time for Robert F. McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor, to stop in West Springfield. But an urgent memo awaited from his senior advisers in Richmond...A 20-year-old academic thesis -- in which McDonnell had presented a deeply conservative vision of government and criticized working women, single mothers and homosexuals -- had surfaced. McDonnell needed to sign off on the campaign's response, and then he needed to race to a rally...That moment brought the greatest test of McDonnell's disciplined campaign. Would he be able to maintain his focus...

Tuesday's GOP gubernatorial sweep revealed an electorate deeply anxious about jobs, the state of the economy and the wider Obama agenda. We realize we sound like St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, but if the Democratic establishment wants to avoid a repeat in 2010 they'll dump their current ambitions and start over.--snip--Democrats entered this year well positioned to get political credit for a recovering economy, whether or not their policies had much to do with it. Yet a year later their willy-nilly expansion of government is creating fear and uncertainty that are inhibiting the animal spirits crucial to...

Lessons from Virginia for the GOP By Ed Gillespie Thursday, November 5, 2009 After losing Virginia's governorship for the first time in eight years, some Democrats are trying to console themselves that Virginia is at its core a "red" state. This ignores not only that they won back-to-back governorships but also that Democrats defeated a sitting senator in 2006, took control of the state Senate in 2007 and won an open Republican Senate seat and three House seats in 2008 while carrying Virginia's electoral college votes for the first time since 1964. Some in the White House are trying to...

Did voters in the elections last night say, "Yes," to "The Party of No?" Were the convincing victories in last night's elections a victory for the Republican Party? And, were they a defeat for President Obama?

Four men accused of planning to kidnap two Roanoke County women and hold them for ransom were indicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Joshua Kasongo, 19, of Roanoke; Mohammed Hussein Guhad, 19, of Roanoke; Luke Musa Elbino, 19, of Vinton; and Anthony Eugene Muse, 18, of Roanoke are each charged with conspiring to kidnap and attempted kidnapping. Guhad and Muse are students at Patrick Henry High School. Elbino is a student at Virginia Western Community College.

There seems to be some misconception by some, especially those on the left, that the big winners in Tuesday's elections in Virginia were moderate Republicans. Let's disabuse them of that notion. The charge is usually stated as a premise in a comment along the lines of "the right wing should not celebrate too much over these results, because had the Virginia guys been conservatives, they never would have won." Then, for the chaser, they throw out the Hoffman loss in NY-23 as the example of what happens to a conservative when he dares to run for office.

The peoples' Genie spoke yesterday. But will they keep speaking, or will the Genie ease back into the bottle? After watching the cram-down of astronomically expensive legislation and the accompanying explosion in national debt, the people's Genie tipped over the bottle and came out. Then the Genie's people spoke with bold passion at the August town hall meetings. As the fall approached, they kept speaking. They gathered at T.E.A. Party events along nationwide bus tours. They formed a huge crowd in Washington, D.C. on 9/12. They carried homemade signs in civil demonstrations in cities of all sizes across the land....

Just as many of us predicted the Democrat leadership is frantically spinning yesterdays election saying that Virginia and New Jersey are no big deal while NY-23 should....get this....actually reassure bluedog Dem's: Centrist, Blue Dog Democrats should be reassured on their healthcare vote by last night's election, White House senior advisor David Axelrod said Wednesday. Axelrod said that Democrats' victory in New York's 23rd congressional district should reassure Democrats who are concerned about the political ramifications of any vote for the House's health reform bill. Which is hilarity in the extreme. Owens is, as KOS described him in less then glowing...

Voters in New Jersey proved last night that they are way smarter than voters in Pennsylvania, who blew a chance to rid themselves of the odious Jack Murtha last year. The Republicans ran an outstanding candidate, Lt. Col Bill Russell; but Pennsylvanians decided to stick with the traitorous gasbag instead of electing an American hero. New Jersey voters at last, banished Goldman Sachs alum, John Corzine, who ran on a platform of being Obama’s BFF. The Obama- blessed incumbent offered the traditional Democrat vision: higher taxes and corruption on a scale that makes Mayor Daley look downright saintly. Inexplicably, the...