Free Republic

Responding to the almost monolithically positive coverage of the Obama administration by the national press, Phil Bronstein, editor-at-large for the Hearst Newspapers, observed recently that the Administration and the reporters covering it should "get a room." And while USA Today's account of Barack and Michelle Obama's "United We Serve" initiative appeared after Bronstein's quip, its coverage of same serves as yet another example of a media apparently unwilling to show even the remotest amount of skepticism about an Administration and program that deserve a great deal of it. As USA Today's Andrea Stone wrote, "First Lady Michelle Obama will launch...

Comedian Al Franken was declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate race today after the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected all of Sen. Norm Coleman's legal arguments that the recount had been unfair. Coleman conceded the race in the video below . . . . (Watch Video) . . . . The victory gives the Democrats 58 Senate seats, with two independents who virtually always vote with the Democrats. That equals a 60-vote super majority in the Senate if they all stick together. Sixty votes are enough to invoke cloture, which allows legislation to be brought to the floor. . ....

Watch out Bar Rafaeli, as Donna Feldman is the new Israeli topmodel to watch. The 5'10" beauty bedazzled us in movies like "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" with Adam Sandler, seduced us on the biggest billboards for the latest Christian Audigier swimwear campaign, and just shot the new collection from Hollywod's new master-of-the-red-carpet-dress, Yochi Ben.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is developing plans to seek up to 1,500 National Guard volunteers to step up the military's counter-drug efforts along the Mexican border, senior administration officials said Monday.

In last week’s Money and Markets column, I gave you a broad outline of the Obama administration’s regulatory reform scheme. This week, I want to zero in on one of its weakest links. I’m talking about the idea of making the Federal Reserve an “uber-regulator,” responsible for managing system-wide risk. First, what in the world is system-wide risk? Well, that’s the risk that interconnected-institutions will drag down the whole financial system when they gamble with other people’s money and then blow up! Think AIG, Citigroup and other disgraceful members of the notorious “Too Big to Fail” club. Obama’s plan calls...

The announcement in a press release from Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) reveals that $16.5 Million in Waterway Conservation Recovery Funding will pay for 6 projects in Washington State. It is estimated that the six projects will support 115 jobs. Breakdown of funding: Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Foundation: Project/Funding: Removal of Derelict Fishing Gear in Puget Sound: Remove over 200 metric tons of marine debris, including net removals. (Mt. Vernon) $4,595,369 The Nature Conservancy: Project/Funding: Fisher Slough Marsh Restoration: Restore 60 acres of the Skagit River floodplain by replace antiquated agriculture floodgates and restoring 15 miles of critical habitat for Chinook,...

This article, from a Naples-based Reuters correspondent, appears to suggest that some European countries want new sanctions on Iran in response to its crackdown on protesters, but the Obama administration does not, though maybe this is the correspondent putting words in the president's mouth. The relevant section: As Italian prime minister Berlusconi is acting president of the G8, but it remains to be seen how much support there is for a tightening of sanctions already adopted against Iran over its nuclear programme by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States. US President Barack Obama is trying to...

I heard this audio clip on the Roger Hedgecock show yesterday. posted here: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Test was racist?

The British recession was much more severe than first thought in the first three months of the year, with the economy suffering its sharpest quarterly contraction in more than 50 years, official figures showed on Tuesday. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the economy actually shrank by 2.4pc in the first quarter compared with the final three months of 2008, much more sharply than its first estimate of 1.9pc. ONS records show that the last time the British economy contracted by more than 2.4pc was in the second quarter of 1958 when gross domestic product fell by 2.6pc and...

Yeah, I know Jose Serrano introduced a House resolution to repeal the 22nd Amendment a few months ago. He did the same thing in 2003. It went nowhere then and it’ll go nowhere now. Help me figure this out: Conservatives are absolutely convinced that Obamanomics was, is, and can only be an unmitigated disaster for the country, so much so that the chief strategy among the base for a Republican revival at the moment is to sit back, watch liberalism implode, and then welcome back voters to the right with open arms. If all of that’s true and a backlash...

We all remember the infamous Duke University rape frame-up case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black female stripper. It was front-page news coast to coast, as it had all the elements of a mainstream-media cause célèbre: the perfect victim and the perfect villains, a “downtrodden” black woman of modest means and three “privileged” white college boys. Thus did the hard-left alliance of media, academia, and a Democrat prosecutor try its best to lynch the three, and if the stripper’s story hadn’t changed with the wind, the students could very well be sitting in...

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said an archeological mission discovered the remnants of an ancient military town in the governorate of Ismailiya. The discovered military town dates back to the 26th Dynasty (664-625 BC). It was found in Tel Defna between Al-Manzala Lake and the Suez Canal. The area had been chosen by king Rameses II to avoid attacks from the eastern borders. In addition, the area was used as crossing point by trade convoys coming from east. The discovered military city belongs to king Ibsemalik I.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations marshaled an unusually broad effort on Tuesday to condemn the military seizure of power in Honduras, turning over the podium of the General Assembly to its ousted president and quickly passing a resolution sponsored by countries often at loggerheads, including the United States and Venezuela. The deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, said the “brutal” coup, including what he called a threat by soldiers to shoot him dead if he did not stop talking on his cell phone, was a blow against democracy. He called it “an act of aggression attacking the democratic will of the...

With the recent narrow passage of the controversial Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill in the House and the ongoing debate over global warming, one should expect balanced coverage of both sides of the issue. However, much of the media has neglected to report on the alleged “hush up” of an EPA research analyst whose report on global warming prompted his supervisor to warn it could have had a “very negative impact on this office.” At 8:45 a.m. EDT on the June 30 edition of "Fox and Friends," EPA Senior Operations Research Analyst Alan Carlin, told interviewer Steve Doocy that his...

Honduras' attorney general says ousted President Manuel Zelaya will be arrested " as soon as he steps foot on Honduran soil.Luis Alberto Rubi tells a newconerence on Tuesday that Zelaya faces numerous charges that carry sentences " of at least 20 years in prison

COKATO, DELANO, HOWARD LAKE, MONTROSE, WAVERLY, MN – David Valderrama, 29, has carried his large cross more than 1,000 miles since he first began a mission to tell the world, “Jesus loves you.” He recently flew to Minnesota and was spotted Monday, June 29 just east of Howard Lake after walking along Highway 12 through the cities of Delano, Montrose, and Waverly heading towards Howard Lake and Cokato on his way to Litchfield. This is one of many journeys that Valderrama of Tulsa, OK has been on since he began carrying his cross September 2007 from Baltimore, MD to St....

KTLA News June 30, 2009 HAWTHORNE-- A registered sex offender who found a teenage girl's lost dog threatened to torture her pet unless he got sex from her, police said. Alfredo Jaime Dempkey, 27, of Hawthorne, was arrested Friday night at the place where he had agreed to meet the 17 year old girl he planned to extort sex from. In an interview with the Daily Breeze, the teenage girl said her dog, "Pineapple," a 2 year old cocker spaniel/toy poodle mix, wandered away from her family home around 7 p.m. Friday night. Her family reportedly looked for the dog,...

Bankruptcy experts Mark Roe and David Skeel, law professors at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, have written a paper assessing the Chrysler bankruptcy—very negatively. It hasn’t been published yet, but it’s available here to Social Science Research Network subscribers; I’m working off an emailed copy. [snip] Roe and Skeel note that the bankruptcy judge didn’t use—or even mention—the ordinary requirements of creditor priority in § 1129 of the bankruptcy code. “The requirement in § 1129 (a)(8) tghat each class of creditors consent or receive full payment wasn’t used. A market test wasn’t used. There was no judicial valuation of...

I just do not understand it I thought there would be Peace and Love when "The One" was elected. Bowing and showing subservience just did not cut it Chavez is blaming him even though he is on the side of Marxist Honduran Dictator and now AmaNutJob is telling him where he can stick it. It is true BO is sticking his nose in where it does not belong like Israel telling them they cannot build and by backing the Honduran dictator but is he also sticking his nose into the Iranian affairs? According to AmaNutJob he is and be warned!...

Eleven score and twelve years ago, 56 founders of this great nation signed a document freeing the United States from British tyranny and establishing national pride of independence and freedom that George Washington would reaffirm during his farewell address when he said: “The name of American which belongs to you, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism” and, “Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.” A nation was born from the wilderness that would in the coming years feed the world, give charitably and abundantly...