Free Republic

It was a recurring theme of Barack Obama's presidential campaign — a call for openness: "Transparency and accountability, getting the American people involved, that's how we're gonna bring about change," candidate Obama said. And the theme continued on Obama's first day as president: "Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known." But for advocates of open government, the new era of openness has yet to dawn. "Once all the pretty speeches were over in the first couple...

(snip) On health care, Romney pointed to the successes of his own plan but criticized Obama's for its emphasis on a public option. "The president's plan makes an enormous error by saying we're going to put government into the insurance business. We got everyone in Massachusetts insured and we did it without putting government into the insurance business," he said. "We said instead we're going to help people get private free enterprise kind of insurance they can buy from a number of different companies." He said the system led to plunging premiums while offering a healthy choice of options for...

Marylou Chicote, site administrator for a Revolutionary War monument in Vermont, was looking to make the Fourth of July about something more than barbecues and fireworks, so she turned to the piece of paper that started it all -- the Declaration of Independence. She recruited an actor to dress in Colonial-era clothes and perform a dramatic reading of the document in front of the soaring stone obelisk in Bennington to honor a famous battle there and bring the nation's independence alive. "It was a hit," Miss Chicote says. "It makes people think about what the day means as opposed to...

The Archdiocese of Baltimore plans to investigate whether an Annapolis woman's cure from cancer was a miracle, a possible step toward sainthood for a 19th-Century priest. Mary Ellen Heibel was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2004 and early 2005 for malignant tumors in her lungs, liver, stomach and chest. After she was diagnosed, Heibel began praying to Blessed Francis X. Seelos, and urging others to pray as well.

Maybe this is why Congressman Waxman had to be rushed to the hospital today. A new poll released by Rasmussen today, reflected how far out of touch the Democratic majority is with America's Voters. Over half of voters say the number one goal of any energy policy should be to keep energy costs low. 56% say that they should not pay one penny more, either in taxes or higher fuel costs, to fight global warming. In fact America is not even convinced that Global Warming is man made. For those of you who have read the Cap and Trade bill...

The Communist Party USA’s position on the recent non-coup in Honduras is markedly congruous with Barack Obama’s: “The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) joins with the world in denouncing the coup d’état this morning against the legally elected president of the Republic of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by the Honduran military, in which, according to a statement by the president’s wife, Mr. Zelaya was threatened and beaten before being sent into exile in Costa Rica.

Like much of the country, you may have spent your time last week snickering about the peccadilloes of yet another hapless politician who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Or maybe you were captivated by the untimely but predictable passing of the most talented musical freak of the last quarter century. Perhaps while watching the ABC-Barack Obama dog-and-pony show purporting to deal with the future of your health care system, you were deceived into thinking that this was the big issue of the week. If so, you would be wrong. Make no mistake, it is on the agenda, but the real...

Country music has always had something of an image problem, particularly among people who fancy themselves as progressives. Immigrant-trashing, gay-bashing, race-baiting, women-hating songs aren't hard to find in the country catalogue. Heck, sometimes you can find them all on a single album.snipBut, for all of its redneck revelry, country music also supplies many examples of forward-thinking artists who served up traditional hits while subverting traditional stereotypes: Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and the Dixie Chicks, to name just a few, not only upended perceptions, they became country superstars in the process.snip Now add to that list Brad...

Caution: This story contains descriptions that some may find offensive.A professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington says the outrage over a homosexual statutory rape case at Duke University is a deafening sound of silence. Frank Lombard, associate director of Duke University's Center for Health Policy, has been accused of molesting his adopted five-year-old African-American son and offering him up for sex with strangers on the Internet. Lombard's homosexual partner, who resides in the same house with Lombard, was allegedly unaware of the activities.   Mike Adams is a professor at UNC-Wilmington and has written several pieces on the...

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised that he would “reboot America’s image” around the world. Indeed, many Americans who voted for Obama believed that his global popularity would somehow reverse the tide of anti-Americanism that so vexed his predecessor. Echoing this sentiment of Obama as savior of America’s image abroad, presidential advisor David Axelrod recently asserted that “anti-Americanism isn’t cool anymore.” In Europe, where anti-Americanism was elevated to the status of a religion during the presidency of George W. Bush, the “chattering classes” have, by and large, toned down their criticism of the United States since Obama was elected....

The King of Pop takes a break from his busy afterlife to give EC the inside scoop on how he REALLY died in his first posthumous interview.

You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. (Psalm 32:7)

Robert and Kay Lynn lay in bed shortly after closing on their new home in the Blue Oaks subdivision in Rancho Murieta, Calif., abutting an 18-hole golf course. They were listening to the “pop, pop, pop” of what they thought were acorns falling onto the roof. The Lynns soon realized those were not acorns dropping on the roof. “Little did we know it was the house cracking,” says Mrs. Lynn, 67 years old. Mr. Lynn, 68, says they bought the property in 2002 for $357,000 as a weekend home and an investment. The stucco house was moving and shifting, with...

If you’ve been getting your kicks in three-minute doses on YouTube, you might want to take one evening this summer to dress up and unplug. “I think opera can be quite therapeutic for the ADD generation,” says American designer-director Thaddeus Strassberger who will be directing Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots,” one of the grandest of the grand French operas, for Bard’s SummerScape July 31 through August 7, a show that will give opera diehards as well as novices a chance to steep themselves in a particularly rare treat. Full of big emotions and clear drama, the producer promises it will be...

"Stockholm wants to get the EU to sign up to a new UN global warming treaty to be negotiated in Copenhagen in December and which would replace the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon emissions that expires in 2012. "We need a global answer to this global problem," Reinfeldt said. ... Other priorities include EU enlargement, of which Sweden is a fierce advocate, improving European judicial cooperation, and developing a strategy to improve the Baltic Sea's marine environment and the region's growth potential. Reinfeldt's government will host the European Commission for a meeting in Stockholm on Wednesday that will formally open...

WASHINGTON – Like a car salesman pushing a luxury vehicle that the customer no longer can afford, NASA has pulled out of its back pocket a deal for a cheaper ride to the moon. It won't be as powerful, and its design is a little dated. Think of it as a base-model Ford station wagon instead of a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade. Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating a cut-rate alternative...

In front of a run-down shack in north Houston, federal agents step from a government sedan into 102-degree heat and face a critical question: How can the woman living here buy four high-end handguns in one day? The house is worth $35,000. A screen dangles by a wall-unit air conditioner. Porch swing slats are smashed, the smattering of grass is flattened by cars and burned yellow by sun. “I’ll do the talking on this one,” agent Tim Sloan, of South Carolina, told partner Brian Tumiel, of New York. Success on the front lines of a government blitz on gunrunners supplying...

July ushers in new Ga. laws By GREG BLUESTEIN ATLANTA The beginning of July ushers in a slew of new laws in Georgia, including a measure that seeks to celebrate the Confederacy while also honoring a civil rights leader, new rules praised by abortion opponents and a pair of laws long sought by prosecutors. Those measures and dozens of others are set to take effect on Wednesday, the first day of July. And while some of the new laws aren't among the most high-profile legislation, many are the result of hard-fought legislative battles that could have profound impact. Prosecutors groups,...

According to several sources, including Folha Online: (English Translation: Since the beginning of the search for the black box of Airbus, the French Navy have detected several beeps, but after further analysis, these tracks were discarded for not registering the technical parameters of the signals... The BEA has the wrong blood to do it! Le BEA a du mauvais sang à se faire!... The BEA announced a «factual report» would be presented on July 2nd at 3pm. EuroCockpit could publish a synthesis on this accident the same day, just before the BEA conference. No doubt that journalists will then have...