Free Republic

Independence Hall Tea Party III was quite a success, surprising even to us. At the highest point 2100 people (a tad more than Philadelphia Tea Party II)were present. And people were coming and going through out. Over a thousand people signed our Tea Party Petitions on Cap and Trade, Health Care and EFCA,and to join Independence Hall Tea Party Association many also signing up for the Mother of all Tea Parties on 9/12. We were not permitted to collect money on Independence Hall territory, but if you were one of the people who signed up for a bus for 9/12,...

He talks to Glenn Beck.

As you know, on July 4th, the U.S. joined other OAS member-states in unanimously deciding to suspend the right of Honduras to participate in the OAS. Our goal remains the restoration of the democratic order in Honduras. And we renew our call on all political and social actors in Honduras to find a peaceful solution to this crisis. We regret the necessity of this measure and look forward to the day when circumstances will allow the measure to be lifted and Honduras’ participation resumed. It’s important to note that under the provisions of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, this suspension does...

As Ronald Reagan once said about Jimmy Carter during a debate "Well there he goes again". Well here goes Kim ill Jong again. Once more over the July 4 weekend the megalomaniac in Pyongyang-and his thugs in the military- launched another provocative round of missile launches.

Rep. Michael Burgess, one of the few medical doctors in the House of Representatives today, gives us his opinion on the upcoming battle on reforming Healthcare. “Some of the things like health savings accounts and health reimbursement accounts may not even be qualified coverage under some of the Democratic plans so that a person would have to pay a fine in order to keep their insurance. Kind of makes a mockery out of the slogan, ‘If you like what you have you can keep it.’ “I sympathize with people that look at congress this year what has already been done....

The Queen, who is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, has also wished them well with today's launch in London of a new alliance of evangelical and Anglo-Catholic parishes in Britain and Ireland. She told the heads of the traditionalist group, formed in response to the liberal direction of some parts of the Anglican Communion, that she “understood their concerns” about the future of the 80 million-strong global church. The Queen, who is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, has also wished them well with today’s launch in London of a new alliance of evangelical and...

As reported yesterday from the perspective of the participants in the demonstration against the new government and for the return of Manuel Zelaya, it was said that the military initiated the conflict with the demonstrators. Recently I interviewed a high ranking Honduran military officer in Tegucigalpa, and he tells a different story than what is being officially reported. The officer claims that protesters had wire cutters (I did see protesters with wire cutters) and began cutting the chain link fence and ripping it down. The crowd convened onto the fence, ready to rush onto the tarmac at the airport. Shots...

In a new report, global aid agency Oxfam says impoverished communities like Nassapir are already being hit hard by the effects of global warming, including increased drought. Without international funding to help them cope and tough targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the food, water, health and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people will be put at even greater risk. Oxfam says interviews it carried out with farmers in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America show that seasons are shrinking in number and variety. This is destroying harvests, pushing farmers to abandon traditional...

Tennessee Planned Parenthood loses government funding for abortions Bob Diamond July 5, 7:05 PM .iconpanel a { text-decoration:none; color:#006699}; .iconpanel a:hover { text-decoration:none; color:#006699} .emailshowing { display:none}                There was a one-sided vote in both the Tennessee house and senate that removed Planned Parenthood’s decades long stranglehold on family planning funds in the Volunteer State.  Susan Allen of Tennessee Right to Life is thankful that Planned Parenthood will no longer receive the annual automatic nod from the state.  She commented that, "For approximately 40 years, Planned Parenthood was given preferential treatment in the Tennessee state law for getting family...

When Karl Keating started Catholic Answers in the mid 1980s, he wasn’t setting out to create a new Catholic apostolate with an international outreach. He just wanted to hide behind a name. What started as a simple response to an anti-Catholic tract twenty-one years ago has blossomed into the largest Catholic apologetics and evangelization organization in North America. — By Tim Drake, Envoy Magazine (www.envoymagazine.com), 2001 — At the time, Keating was working behind a desk as a general civil lawyer. After Mass one Sunday morning he discovered an anti-Catholic flyer had been placed on the windshields of all the...

Sarah Palin's political future seems to be in question now more than ever since she announced her resignation as Alaska's governor, but prominent conservative Rush Limbaugh says it is too early to count her out of the 2012 presidential race. "I don't think this precludes her running for office down the road, the presidency, in 2012, at all," Limbaugh said in a radio interview over the weekend with Brian Maloney of Radio Equalizer. "I think these people saying she's an instant target because she quit is just inside the beltway formulaic. And she's not that." Limbaugh echoed that sentiment: "If...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country. Since about half the planet's climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each...

Cudahy - Mayor Ryan McCue said a state of emergency has been declared as fire officials continue to battle a blaze at the Patrick Cudahy meatpacking plant. Fire Chief Dan Mayer said ammonia in the plant that has caused concern throughout the day appears to be contained. "We believe that's safe now inside," Mayer said. "From the ammonia standpoint, I'm cautiously optimistic that we have crossed the dangerous period." [snip]

1. African-American people: For a brilliant writer and perceptive chronicler of the human psyche, there’s a whole lot that Woody Allen, or at least the Woody Allen we know from his movies, just doesn’t seem to understand. Allen’s charming, maddening new movie, Whatever Works, provides another in-depth glimpse into the strengths and weaknesses of his neurotic, acerbic, New York-centric worldview. Allen is a whiz at exposing the anxieties and desires of the upper-middle-class Manhattan smart-set, but his blind spots are legion. Take African-Americans for example. Allen named his son after the great pitcher Satchel Paige and has a deep abiding...

Reihan Salam, an influential young player in the effort to revive the Republican Party, writes this weekend that Sarah Palin's resignation is another sign of the fading culture wars: What does seem increasingly clear is that Palin's collapse represents the end of a certain kind of politics. If the culture war really is ending, culture warriors like Palin will fade from the scene. I can hear many mainstream Republicans sharing Salam's sigh of relief. I think they're fooling themselves. It's wishful thinking by the GOP's non-social conservatives, who want the party to double down on fiscal conservatism—especially now that Democratic...

12:16 AM PDT, July 6, 2009 Reporting from Beijing -- China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the northwestern city of Urumqi, leaving 140 people dead and more than 800 injured, the state news agency Xinhua reported. The unrest pitted Uighurs, a long-aggrieved Muslim minority, against the Han Chinese, who increasingly dominate the far-flung Xinjiang region. With the death toll climbing over the course of the day, the violence appeared to be far deadlier than that last year in the Tibetan region.

Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Mormon Church, taught that not only is God our Heavenly Father an "exalted" man who evolved into godhood, but he lives with his wives on a planet near the star Kolob (Abraham 3:2-3, 16). There, from a distance, he reigns over the earth. Seriously. — By Brian Saint-Paul, Envoy Magazine, www.envoymagazine.com — In three short months, Joseph Smith would be dead — murdered at the hands of an angry mob. But on this day in April of 1844, his followers were assembled in a lush grove to pay homage to one who...

It's always nice to see the leaders of the United States and Russia having a pleasant summit. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking the statements mean much. In July 2008, President Bush and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev had a meeting at the G8 summit: PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV: (As translated.) Well, indeed, we had this exchange today with George concerning various issues on the agenda of our relationship, including those of domestic importance, trade and investments, and internationally related matters, including those conflicts and crisis tendencies in the world. And true that on certain matters we do have differences originating from...

A very wise friend suggested to me that Obama's second term is an inevitability. I have to take issue with him because it seems all too clear to me that the president has abandoned the ironclad strategy for victory. What he should have done was to dedicate himself to fixing the banking/financial system, to restore its foundations, to bring about better rules, and to restore public confidence in the lifeblood of the system. Had he done that, eight years would have been a foregone conclusion. Instead, he has made the financial system an interesting sideline to go along with his...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdY