Free Republic

          Most people know that New Jersey is only second to California for financial trouble. First term Congressman Leonard Lance who lives in one of the most affluent areas of New Jersey, Hunterdon County was an unsuccessful lawyer in Clinton New Jersey and practiced under the wing of his father a useless State Senator.           Lance has betrayed Republicans by casting the deciding vote for the cap-and-trade bill. He certainly did not listen to his constituents. Lance needs to be targeted and thrown out of office in 2010.

When explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark completed a trailblazing expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean in 1806, they were revered as American heroes and their journals as literary classics. But Lewis's death three years later, at the age of 35, is now turning into a historical whodunnit as academics, scientists and generations of his descendants question whether he really committed suicide, as was accepted at the time, or whether he may have been felled by an assassin's bullets.

There were many strange tragedies to Michael Jackson's life, but an ­unexpected sadness is that, in death, this huge global celebrity makes me think, not of Thriller, not even of the Jackson 5, but of a 47-year-old Scottish woman who was allegedly last seen in a hotel in Liverpool crying for her cat, ­Pebbles. Jackson's death and Susan Boyle's all too obvious unhappiness both stem from the same source: fame. I have never believed, and nothing in the past few weeks has altered my certainty, that one can be famous in today's world of mass media and 24-hour paparazzi and...

In a wide-ranging midday press conference, President Obama took on Republican critics of his stance on Iran, directly targeting former rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and saying, "I am the president of the United States." Obama, who has been accused by McCain and other Republicans of being too timid throughout the unrest following Iran's presidential elections, has gradually taken a firmer stance in the days following the election. . . . . . "The Iranian people can speak for themselves," Obama said in the James S. Brady Briefing Room. "That is precisely what has happened these last few days. In...

I know this is heresy, blasphemy to the gods of the publicity industrial complex who created and destroyed the later Michael Jackson. But I’ve let a day pass since his awful death before saying this: after the completely wonderful Jackson Five era, Michael Jackson was no longer a very interesting singer, not after he left the collaborative genius of the J-5. He became known for his dancing (wow, the moonwalk, really memorable!), for his stupid costumes (what was with the whole militaristic thing? And was the glove really all that interesting or distinctive in any way?), for one or two...

In diplomacy, messages are often not direct or straightforward. Sometimes lessons from one theatre have relevance for another. The belligerence of North Korean dictator Kim Jong II over the past few weeks is a sobering reminder of how things can go wrong if a paramount power decides to speak softly without waving a big stick. On May 25, Pyongyang tested a nuclear device. A North Korean ship is currently on the high seas, apparently carrying an illegal cargo of missiles and other weaponry to Burma. On July 4, Independence Day in the United States, Mr Kim has promised to fire...

TO THE BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND DEACONS, MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS, AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL ON CHRISTIAN HOPE Introduction 1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of...

JOHANNESBURG—United States head coach Bob Bradley is normally an all-business type who always seems to answer media questions with a serious tone and rarely smiles in the public eye. How ironic, then, that two days before the most momentous match in his career—the Confederations Cup final against Brazil—Bradley was jocular, if not downright giddy, at his afternoon press conference. The good mood was apparent before even the first question had been asked. Bradley sat down at the dais with U.S. captain Carlos Bocanegra on his right. For some reason, the arrangement felt odd for Bradley and he asked Bocanegra to...

Cap and Trade will put millions in the pockets of big business. How about you? DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--T. Boone Pickens offered the following statement on passage of Waxman/Markey climate legislation entitled, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009: “I congratulate Chairmen Waxman and Markey and the House leadership for taking important first steps in advancing the use of renewable energy in our nation’s power grid. The American public wants this, and they recognize the important role a Green Bank, Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and transmission provisions will have in revitalizing our economy..." Foutsc's Statement on the Passage of...

WASHINGTON – Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead. It was late Friday when the House passed legislation that would, for the first time, require limits on pollution blamed for global warming — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Now the Senate has the chance to change the way Americans produce and use energy. What would the country look like a decade from now if the House-passed bill — or, more likely, a water-down version — were to become...

Stories like this continue to mount in the UK, and are a warning to us of the growing utilitarian, quality of life/cost-benefit bent in health care.  A stroke patient, it is charged, was almost neglected to death–if not worse–at a UK hospital.  From the story: John MacGillivray, 78, from Auchterarder, was admitted to Perth Royal Infirmary having suffered a stroke on May 22. Two days later, his family were told by hospital doctors he would die within hours. His daughter Patricia MacGillivray told Sky News:…”There were several issues we already had with the level of care he had received in...

WASHINGTON — President Obama told congressional lawmakers Thursday that he would push for an overhaul of the nation's immigration system by early next year. But during the White House meeting, a new political obstacle came into view: how to regulate the influx of foreign workers. The issue was raised by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a principal architect of past attempts to rewrite immigration laws. McCain challenged Obama and other Democrats to stand up to labor unions that are pushing a plan business groups fear could be overly restrictive in admitting future immigrant workers. "I would expect the president of the...

Now no one can look at the sun, bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean. Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty. The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress. (Job 37:21-23)

Pelosi: ‘Remember These Four Words For What This Legislation Means: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs.’ Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed the House floor this evening on the American Clean Energy and Security Act. She commended the work and leadership of Chairmen Henry Waxman, Ed Markey, Charles Rangel, and Collin Peterson. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 219 to 212. On the floor, the Speaker said: “No matter how long this Congress wants to talk about it, we cannot hold back the future. And so, in order to move on with the future, I want...

A UK bioethicist named Daniel K. Sokol, who writes nary a word in opposition to Futile Care Theory, aka medical futility (meaning, I suspect, he is a futilitarian), has nonetheless written a valuable informative essay in the British Medical Journal (no link, 13 JUNE 2009 | Volume 338) called “The Slipperiness of Futility.” For example, he defines the different “kinds” of futility: Although ethically aware clinicians need not be familiar with the vast literature on the concept of futility, they might wish to remember the following four points: • Futility is goal specific. • Physiological futility is when the...

...Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denied on Saturday an Israeli newspaper report that he had described US President Barack Obama as being "weak" on Iran during a meeting with Israel's prime minister (Netanyahu) in Rome.

By now you've heard the news: the House has passed the cap & trade bill that will saddle Americans with thousands of dollars in new taxes, fees and costs each year. It's just the latest big government, quasi-socialistic policy that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid team are trying to force through in their efforts to remake America into a nation that our Founding Fathers wouldn't recognize. Today there will be protests all across the nation against this measure - and the Our Country Deserves Better Committee will be having our staff, leadership and supporters out joining the resistance against these un-American leftist policies....

LONDON, England (CNN) -- How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it's just one -- if that one is Michael Jackson. The biggest showbiz story of the year saw the troubled star take a good slice of the Internet with him, as the ripples caused by the news of his death swept around the globe. "Between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson," a Google spokesman told CNET, which also reported that Google News...

Received the following email message from FReeper Stuart Weil yesterday while we were at the Reagan Library: "Last week I noticed a small group of demonstrators on the corner of Blackstone and Shaw peacefully holding signs protesting the tyranny of the Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei and for human rights of their fellow Iranian’s who wish to live in freedom instead of oppression, violence, discrimination and fanaticism at the hands of the Iranian Mullahs. Although I am not Iranian, I stand with them in solidarity and share their frustration and anger at the repressive Iranian regime." "President Obama has been virtually...

(2009-06-27) — Senate Republicans today introduced an “innovative alternative” to the 1,300-page cap-and-trade climate change bill which passed the House 219-212 virtually-unread Friday night as the nation sat transfixed by wall-to-wall coverage of the death of an iconic pop singer. Supporters said the GOP-sponsored ‘Michael Jackson Energy Act’ will clear away a raft of environmental regulations that currently discourage construction of nuclear power plants, and will spark energy independence while reducing emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.The 1,897-page Michael Jackson Energy bill includes more than a thousand pages of uninformed speculation about the cause of the performer’s death, gossip about the...