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Of all the reactions to Sarah Palin's Friday morning press conference, the most common by far is bafflement followed by gentle and not-so-gentle mockery. Those who've long since deemed Palin a criminally incompetent Lady Macbeth were delighted to see her crash and burn. Sensing some kind of ulterior motive, one emerging narrative is that she is abandoning ship before some messy ethics violation is revealed in an effort to preserve her 2012 presidential viability. One outlandish theory I've toyed with is that she intends to build a new life as an evangelical super-celebrity, the tough-but-loving mother of a large Christian...

Great profile of the July 4th Tea Party, featuring Colonel Allen West, Everett of South Florida Tea Party and all the fiscally conservatively minded citizens of South Florida!

CAIRO — An important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment. A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate,...

As Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the leader of Libya, hosted an African Union summit last week, his name was romantically linked in a court case with the queen mother of an ancestral Ugandan kingdom. Two editors of a Ugandan daily newspaper are being prosecuted for alleging that he is having an affair with her. The Libyan ambassador, who initially brought the case seeking £245m in damages, said in his affidavit that the editors had launched an almost daily campaign to defame Gadaffi. The Ugandan director of public prosecutions, which has taken over the case, accused the editors of defaming a foreign...

There she was in front of the camera for all America to see. Stricken with cancer, frightened, helpless, weeping. Then came the hug from the compassionate President Obama. It was one of the most poignant moments of Obama’s health care infomercial broadcast on ABC News. Who would not have voted to pass Obama’s nationalized health care plan right there at that very moment? Which was exactly Obama’s plan. Virtually everyone knows someone suffering with cancer like 53-year-old Debby Smith, and would do almost anything to ease their pain. But Ms. Smith’s unfortunate situation notwithstanding, it was soon found out that...

DUBAI // Iranian protesters who gathered in Dubai last night were prevented by police from signing a petition against their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Officers told the 100-strong crowd they were forbidden from sending official petitions from UAE soil. The Iranians had gathered on the beach at Jumeirah Beach Residence to sign a green banner in protest at recent events in Iran. They had planned to send it to Paris, where it would join others from around the world in being hung from the top of the Eiffel Tower, along with the slogan “Ahmadinejad is not our president”. But protesters said...

LOS ANGELES — Firefighters are battling a wildfire that has burned about 130 acres in the Angeles National Forest northwest of Los Angeles. Forest spokeswoman Dee Dechert says the fire was burning Sunday afternoon in the Little Tujunga Canyon area. She says it is 60 percent contained, with full containment expected Sunday night. Officials say there have been no injuries or evacuations. Moderate winds in the area are pushing the fire away from any structures. The blaze is burning near the site of October's Marek fire, which burned more than 4,800 acres.

As I was watching Sarah Palin these past weeks, even before her surprise announcement that she was stepping down as Governor of Alaska – to do what, exactly? – something kept nagging at me. What did she remind me of? Finally I figured it out: She's the Fatal Attraction of the Republican party. In the movie, Glenn Close plays an attractive and seductive woman with whom the married Michael Douglas character has a vigorous fling, never dreaming she is so loopy she will end up stalking him and his family. In one horrifying scene, Ms. Close's character boils the family...

When Israeli commandos stormed the airport terminal in Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976, they and the 260 passengers of the hijacked aircraft were probably unaware that a small Ugandan Jewish community had gathered in their village 175 miles away to pray for the safety of their brethren. In fact, the Ugandan Jewish community was unknown to most of the world until after the fall of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 1979. Though the community is small in number, its unique history and recent revitalization are remarkable. If their rabbi, Gershom Sizomu, and Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue) — a...

Well, I'm sorry to say that no good opportunity to speak materialized. I sent a copy of A Fourth of July Tea Party Speech to the Sandpoint group, but got a 'no thanks' response. The Sandpoint group had a venue and speakers. Nothing was scheduled for the Spokane area. Finally, I figured that I'd just show up at the Coeur d'Alene event - but all that turned out to be was a parade and a picnic. Don't get me wrong it was nice day - a little hot for these parts - but a nice day anyway. The parade had...

BEIRUT: Days after officials in Washington announced that a US ambassador would soon be sent to Syria, reports have emerged of an upcoming Syrian-Saudi Arabian summit to be held in Damascus that could include Lebanon. Conventional wisdom holds that any improvement in Syrian-Saudi ties generally contributes to increased stability in Lebanon, and according to experts on Levantine politics, Lebanon may already be benefiting from those nations' thawing ties and a revamped US policy in the region. "Any relief or stabilization in the Syrian-Saudi relationship will be positively reflected in the Lebanese political life," Chafik Masri, an international law professor at...

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While filling up our car today, the guy in the lane next to us saw my "1-20-2013...or sooner God willing..." bumper sticker. I'm sitting in the car while my hubbie is pumping gas. I can see the guy take notice and take a couple of steps and then retreat and then he walks to the rear of our car. He says: "I get the "1-20-2013, but the "God willing" part is negative." Hubby's response was "I get what you mean." He didn't want to get into it with the guy. Course, after the guy is gone, we think of a...

The Meeting by David Dempster Freedom@DempsterConsulting.com Dedicated To Ron Paul, Defender of the Constitution 4th of July 2009 He was suddenly alert, listening for a sound that might have awakened him. Outside a storm raged, and as a fresh thunderclap burst he relaxed and settled to go back to sleep. Then he heard the knocking. It was most unusual for his man Antonio to disturb him during the night hours. He quickly threw back the bed sheets, wondering what emergency might await him. When he opened the door it was not Antonio who stood there, but a stranger. He was...

Good evening.President O has flown to Moscow, and I'm telling you, Watch out! 2 very untrustworthy leaders meeting = TROUBLE!In other news, Congress may return from July 4 recess to once again torment us...And across the nation, patriots met at modern-day Tea Parties this weekend.Hope it was a good one for you...I'm still aware of a sense of sadness to be honoring a holiday & its principles I believe too many in DC no longer hold dear themselves.

A Hillary supporter reminds of this Newsweek interview from last August: NEWSWEEK: Sarah Palin, you are a Republican and a conservative one at that. It's unlikely that you and Hillary would agree on too many issues. But, yet, as a woman, chief executive—someone who's been through the grinder—when you look at the coverage and you listen to the conversations, what do you see? Sarah Palin: Fair or unfair—and I do think that it's a more concentrated criticism that Hillary gets on so many fronts; I think that's unfortunate. But fair or unfair, I think she does herself a disservice to...

ORLANDO -- The Celtics [team stats] have reached agreement with free agent forward/center Rasheed Wallace tonight on a contract that starts at the midlevel exemption of $5.8 million.

Sinister forces are at work to destroy America. The totalitarian legislation passed in only 100 days is merely the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. This pro-Arabic, pro-globalist administration is preparing to swap U.S. sovereignty for a higher level presence within the United Nations, a plan that includes reducing your individual rights and those of your children. The “perfect storm” is coming together. We begin our troubles on the nation’s college campuses; those bastions of taxpayer funded brick and mortar which house a cadre of communist professors who preach and teach Marxist ideals instead of America‘s founding...

Recently the government of Italy has started to crackdown on the Islamic threat within Italy. Now they have turned their attention to another threat. The threat of endless mass immigration. These laws are exactly what we need to enforce here. Italy adopts law to curb migrants Italy's parliament has given final approval to a law criminalising illegal immigration and allowing citizens' patrols to help the police keep order.

The UN's top health official has opened a forum in Mexico on combating swine flu by saying that the spread of the virus worldwide is now unstoppable. World Health Organization head Margaret Chan added that the holding of the meeting in Cancun showed confidence in Mexico, which has been hard hit. The WHO says most H1N1 cases are mild, with many people recovering unaided. As the summit opened, the UK alone was projecting more than 100,000 new cases of H1N1 a day by the end of the summer. As the peak of the flu season approaches in South America, some...