Free Republic

Updated at: 2250 PST, Saturday, June 27, 2009 TEHRAN: The editor of a campaign newspaper for Mir Hossein Mousavi on Saturday accused the defeated presidential candidate of "causing" the death of Iranians in protests after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, local media reported. Amir Hossein Mahdavi, 27, told reporters gathered at the news agency he was also a member of the Islamic Revolution Mojahedeen Organization -- one of the key reformist groups backing Mousavi for the June 12 poll. Several of its leaders as well as prominent reformists and journalists were jailed shortly after the election, which Mousavi has dismissed as a...

Featured Term (selected at random): FOUNDER The person who originally establishes any institution or enterprise that continues and flourishes after his or her time. The term is commonly applied to Christ as the founder of the Church. Also refers to the man or woman who begins a religious order or congregation, either by writing the original rule, as did St. Benedict (480-547), or by establishing a specific institute, as did the numerous founders of existing communities. It is equally applicable to those who inaugurate any one of the large number of associations, societies, or institutes flourishing in the Catholic Church....

Despite indications that much of President Obama’s agenda is meeting intra-party skepticism all over Capitol Hill, there is one policy nexus where congressional leaders are still doggedly determined to move the country left: energy and the environment. Speaker Pelosi will reportedly allow a vote on the controversial Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” legislation at the end of this week. And it gets even better. Not content to tempt political fate by imposing huge carbon taxes on the American middle class, Democrats have added a provision which imposes stiff tariffs on our trading partners if they don’t adopt aggressive carbon restrictions of their own....

Various people have been pointing out, as if they have only just realised it, that the leader of the Iranian revolt, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is one of the architects of the 1979 revolution that brought Khomeini to power and is thus a Khomeinist and not much of a reformer at all. They therefore conclude – just like Obama – that there’s nothing to choose between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad and so no-one should support the people on the streets. Some also say that it’s better that Ahmadinejad remains in power so that the full impact of the deranged and menacing nature...

This footage of a red shoulder hawk’s flight, compels and urges repentance, commitment to Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son! Thanks for viewing! Revski

The government of Bermuda has staunchly denied that they were compensated for accepting Uighur detainees from Guantanamo, but the local press is now seizing on an aside in the Times of London as a likely explanation: Colonel David Burch, Bermuda’s Home Affairs Minister, who flew to Guantánamo Bay to pick up the Uighurs, said that the idea for them to be resettled in Bermuda originated with the Government’s US lobbyists before the premier’s trip to the White House in mid-May and that Mr Brown had put the proposed to US officials. Bermuda is eager to avoid a crackdown by...

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained....

To: The Honorable Pete Sessions Chairman, National Republican Congressional Committee 320 First Street SE Washington, DC 20003(202) 479-7000 Wednesday, June 27, 2009 Dear Sir: Throughout the past week, the NRCC urged Republicans -- and indeed, all Americans who care about a prosperous future for our nation -- to oppose the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill. Certainly, I shared the NRCC's opposition to this ill-considered legislation I have called the "Monstrosity From Hell That Will Destroy the American Economy." It was therefore shocking to discover that eight Republican members of the House voted "yes" on this monstrosity. On a close vote of...

Authorities have recorded more than 370 incidents, including 120 violation notices, in the past week as people flock to the Santa Fe National Forest ... between 10,000 and 12,000 people are expected to attend the gathering from July 1-7. Forest Service spokesman Lawrence Lujan says most of the violation notices handed out since June 14 are related to alcohol, and drug and traffic violations. Some of the people who were issued notices were required to appear Monday in federal court in Albuquerque.

Using colourful bras donated by employees at Victoria's Secret, a group of 26 mostly Saudi women completed the first course of its kind to be offered in the kingdom – how to fit, stock and sell underwear. The training organisers hope will help boost a campaign to lift the ban on women selling underwear in the kingdom. The graduates held a small ceremony at a college in the western seaport of Jiddah this week, capping 40 hours of instruction during which they learned to overcome their embarrassment at doing bra fittings, deal with customer complaints and display the stock in...

Saturday, June 27, 2009 Cap & Tax: Nobody Read It ... Because It Doesn't Exist   [Andy McCarthy] Nobody could have read the bill the House passed last night because there is no bill.  There apparently wasn't time to pull together a finished product that accounted for the hundreds of pages of amendments because of Pelosi's headlong rush to slam this lunacy through before anybody had a chance to learn what was actually in it. So there is no "it" that all the pages and pages of words can be found "in."  Democrats have passed a concept — not a bill. John Hinderaker...

Remember how the Congressional Budget Office is supposed to be the gold standard. Well, the same folks that were touting the CBO as the gold standard when the CBO was analyzing health care reform are looking skeptically at their analysis of cap and trade (known as H.R. 2988 American Clean Air and Security Act, ACES). That's because the CBO found that ACES would have a negligible effect on both people's energy costs as well as government's revenues. There would be a net government revenue increase of about $20 billion over ten years and it would cost the average family about...

Managing Editor David Kupelian takes on XXX-rated press corps............... Dear WorldNetDaily reader, Everyone reading this knows exactly why we elected the most left-wing president in history, even though a recent Gallup poll reveals conservatives are the largest ideological group in the nation. It's because Barack Obama had an advantage no other presidential candidate has ever had – the total backing of the "mainstream media," which was so enchanted by the prospect of a young, eloquent, cool, liberal – and for the first time in history, black – president, that they essentially picked Obama up, held him high over head, and...

Jonquel Brooks and lawyer David Mugridge appear in court two years ago. Brooks, 21, was sentenced Friday to life in prison for killing Brant Daniels. ... Emotions ran high as Fresno County Superior Court Judge Gary Orozco sentenced Brooks to 25 years to life in prison for the first-degree murder of Daniels, who was gunned down inside Brooks' apartment just west of the California State University, Fresno, campus. Brooks received another 25 years in prison for using a gun. The judge then tacked on another 59 years and four months in prison for Brooks' conviction on three counts of attempted...

Iran’s thug in chief says he’s surprised at Barack Obama, in an openly contemptuous statement. Iran’s hardline president lashed out anew at the United States and President Barack Obama on Saturday, accusing him of interference and suggesting that Washington’s stance on Iran’s postelection turmoil could imperil Obama’s aim of improving relations. “We are surprised at Mr. Obama,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks to judiciary officials broadcast on state television. “Didn’t he say that he was after change? Why did he interfere?” “They keep saying that they want to hold talks with Iran ... but is this the correct way? Definitely,...

Five of the six black high school students charged with attempted murder in 2006 for allegedly beating a white classmate pleaded no contest... The men agreed to plea deals that settled lawsuits filed against them by Justin Barker and his family the year after the December 4, 2006.... Parents of the Jena Six say they heard Barker was hurling racial epithets, but Barker's parents insist he did nothing to provoke the beating. At the hearing, attorneys representing the five men read a statement expressing sympathy to the Barkers and acknowledging that Justin Barker did not use a racial slur. They...

Congressional Republicans will carve out as much time as they can between patriotic parades, flag-waving ceremonies and church picnics over the July Fourth recess to hammer Democrats on energy, health care and the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Still stinging from back-to-back weeks in which their policy messages were knocked off the front pages by sex scandals involving Republican Sen. John Ensign (Nev.) and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, House and Senate Republicans are hoping to use the recess to regain some of the footing they lost.

With the New York Times calling for the resignation of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, it is imperative that we consider some deeper issues at play. Each political scandal is unique, and thus, they cannot all be treated as the same. It is time for cooler heads to prevail and to consider a more balanced approach to the Sanford situation than the knee-jerk reaction of the NYT.

House votes to enrich General Electric and other U.S. Climate Action Partnership members at Public's Expense The House of Representatives just passed the Waxman-Markey "climate change" bill, whose real purpose is to enrich the U.S. Climate Action Partnership: a consortium of self-serving corporations like General Electric, General Motors, and Chrysler, and nonprofits like the Sierra Club that have to find some way to pay their executives and staffs without delivering tangible manufactured products or other items of value to society. It has been reported that Nancy Pelosi "persuaded" undecided Democrats by offering them pork barrel projects, again at the expense...

Alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years, according to new research. The international study found three quarters of deaths among men and half of deaths among women aged 15-54 could be attributed to alcohol abuse. Such a mortality rate for this age range is five times higher for men and three times higher for women when compared to Western Europe. Professor David Zaridze, who led the research, worked out that alcohol had killed three million in the country since the failed attempt to restrict sales in 1987. Some 30,000 people - twice the...