Free Republic

Just as I predicted, Team Obama is being forced to offer pretty much nothing but a Happy Face Feel Good health plan to Congress devoid of "public option" aka "single payer" aka "government run" aka "socialized medicine." Why? Not that they wouldn't love such an expensive program. It's just, as Barack Obama himself has said, they are OUT of money. Plus the Chinese who own a major portion of our debt read the riot act to Timothy Geithner when he was in Peking and ordered him NOT to make the dollar even more worthless by incurring even more wasteful...

Here is video of Gov. Sarah Palin giving an interview to NBC's Andrea Mitchell today in Alaska, where she explained her reasons for resigning as Governor of Alaska. Palin told Mitchell her own legal bills where not a consideration in the decision. Palin at one point tells Mitchell "you are not listening to me" as to why she decided to not put Alaska through any further turmoil with endless bogus ethics investigations. Mitchell's bias against Palin comes through repeatedly, calling the interview a staged media event, and a "photo op." She also references the wardrobe controversy from the campaign last...

Housing authority eyes potential federal budget cutUpdated 07/06/2009 06:29 PM By: Ed Scannell WINSTON-SALEM – A potential cut in federal funding to the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem is threatening to put hundreds of families out on the street. It's a scenario being played out in communities across the country. The head of the authority was hopeful the Department of Housing and Urban Development would come up with money for the vouchers the families use to help pay their monthly rent. HUD told the authority to use its $3 million in reserves to cover the cost of housing vouchers to some...

from the seems-to-leave-a-lot-of-leeway dept Back in May we wrote about a lawsuit questioning whether or not a blogger could use journalism shield laws to protect a source who sent her info she used for a blog post. The company the info was about is suing her for slander (which is odd, since slander is usually spoken, while libel is written). The woman, Shellee Hale tried to claim that she was protected under New Jersey's shield law, which allows a journalist to protect sources. In writing about this case originally, we pointed out that the judge in question clearly did not...

Quinnipiac's poll in Ohio out this morning has some eyebrow-raising numbers: "President Barack Obama gets a lackluster 49 – 44 percent approval rating in Ohio, considered by many to be the most important swing state in a presidential election, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. This is President Obama’s lowest approval rating in any national or statewide Quinnipiac University poll since he was inaugurated and is down from 62 – 31 percent in a May 6 survey."

WASHINGTON - The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals, and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records. The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major healthcare firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls, according to The Washington Post’s analysis.

An executive from a member of the American Coalition for Free Trade in Tires says the duties that the United States International Trade Commission (U.S.) wants to apply to certain consumer tire imports from China would make the tires "non-competitive." Last week, the ITC proposed that a 55% duty be placed on Chinese tire imports during the first year of sanctions, with a 45% duty the following year and a 35% duty applied the third year. Those duties would be in addition to current duties. The United Steelworkers originally petitioned the federal government to impose a quota of 21 million...

Two weeks ago it was the Urdu poets. This week it's Obama's love for Pushkin's poetry. The week before it was probably the Bhadavad-Gita in Sanskrit. If it's Tuesday this must be Zorba the Greek --- in Greek. It's all in a day's light reading for our Obama. Whaddaguy! He lifts weights two hours a day and has pecs like Arnie. Then he spends the rest of the day reading Urdu, Russian, and classical Arabic. Then he runs the three-trillion dollar US economy down the tubes all by himself, takes over the banks, passes Health Care for All (and saves...

Please pray for my Mother, Geralding Musella. The cancer is spreading and she can use our prayers. Thank you and God bless.

This weekend Joe Biden had an infamous interview with George Stephnopolis. In the interview, Biden said what is now the subject of hyper analysis and mockery. The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited. Now, that doesn't -- I'm not -- it's now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we're in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we're in,

“I would think, if you want to run for president — and I'm not sure that's got anything to do with what she's doing — that the forum of a governorship would be a better forum than just being a private citizen" -- Senator Chuck Grassley In that phrase, “just being a private citizen,” Senator Grassley encapsulates both why Sarah Palin is so phenomenally appealing to the Republican base and how divorced the national Republican apparatus is from the core values of party members. Is it necessary to say that the good senator, now 28 years in Washington, D.C., has...

Please pray for my Mother, Geralding Musella. The cancer is spreading and she can use our prayers. Thank you and God bless.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court has refused to replace hanging with lethal injection as the country's sole method of execution, saying there is no evidence it is less painful than other ways. Monday's ruling rejected a petition by rights activist Ashok Kumar Walia, who said hanging was a "cruel and painful" method of execution and should be replaced by lethal injection, which is used in more than 30 U.S. states as a primary method of execution. "How do you know that hanging causes pain? And how do you know that injecting the condemned prisoner with a lethal drug...

I was looking at a Free Republic post Is There Salvation Outside The Catholic Church which incurred an astounding reaction among Freepers. You won't see that kind of post in Huffington or Kos. I am a former Catholic, now merely and simply a nondenominational "Christian" not bound, or aided by Protestantism or Catholicism. I received an excellent education in parochial grade and high schools, was an altar boy, and like most boys in the 1950's I was steered toward Catholic seminary. I did not go. Again, my parochial education, except for some of the doctrines, gave me an advantage in...

Obama's claim that "in 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over" will have drawn mirthless laughter in Moscow. That is precisely how many Russians see the US behaving around the world, particularly in the Middle East. If national sovereignty is paramount in Georgia, they routinely ask, why not in Serbia and Kosovo? The speech was not televised on the major Russian channels and the applause inside the lecture hall was polite. Russia is not vulnerable to Obamania....

Here is complete video of Gov. Sarah Palin's interview with CNN in which she said "I'm not a quitter; I'm a fighter." Palin granted the interview, her first since announcing she will resign as Alaska Governor on July 26. Palin explained that everything changed for her in Alaska when she was chosen as John McCain's vice-presidential nominee. She said a "new political bloodsport" began in Alaska that day - that of attacking Palin and her family. Palin would not say whether she plans to run for President in the future. . . . . (Watch Video)

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin continues to confound political observers. The woman whose sudden entrance onto the national political stage so badly confused the liberal machine last fall has just as suddenly announced her departure, unexpectedly announcing her resignation as Governor last Friday, less than three years into her term. You can evaluate Mrs. Palin’s political effectiveness by looking at how people reacted to her. The barrage of gutter-level personal attacks after Sen. John McCain chose her as his running mate was swift and vicious. So badly flummoxed was the opposition that they stooped to personal attacks that targeted the Palin...

“Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me.” — Pastor Jeremiah Wright You just can’t trust them Jews. I should know; I’m one of them. But I must confess that I have become weary of lurking in the shadows, plotting against the very people who have so graciously welcomed me into the bosom of the nation, plying my conspiratorial will to destabilize the economy, as did my good friend Bernie Madoff, and lobbying hard to undermine the national interest, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt so astutely discerned in their insightful and groundbreaking book, The Israel Lobby and...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-six percent (36%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –3. Those figures reflect the highest level of strong disapproval measured to date and the lowest level recorded for the overall

Sarah Palin clearly believes that she has been wronged and that she is under concerted attack. She has decided not to relent, or curry favor, or soften her image, or resort to any defensive public relations tactics. She’s on the offensive...