Free Republic

OK! Magazine’s cover story features Debbie Rowe vs. The Jackson Family in a huge custody battle over MJ’s kids. Just as the world says farewell to the King of Pop, it looks like Debbie Rowe is gearing up to get a huge payday. CLICK HERE to see all Michael Jackson Magazine covers! Plus, OK! features never-seen-before photos of Michael Jackson and the kids at Neverland, including MJ & the kids celebrating birthdays, weddings and even a visit from Bill Clinton. Who should get MJ's kids? Debbie Rowe The Jackson Family

SEN. ESPADA RETURNING TO DEMOCRATS POWER IN ALBANY FLIPS AGAIN ALBANY - Bronx state Sen. Pedro Espada, whose defection to the Republican camp helped trigger the current Senate crisis, will return to the Democratic fold and end the month-long Senate stalemate, The Post has learned. Espada, whose defection to the Republicans was the main reason for Gov. Paterson's controversial action yesterday "naming" Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor, revealed his startling plans to The Post. The defection would bring a quick end to the Senate's current 31-31 vote stalemate, in which Espada has repeatedly joined with the 30 Republican members in...

Blood suckers must not have hearts, because RPattz has apparently dumped Kristen Stewart while their sparkly vampire baby love child is baking in her womb (yes, I believe everything I read on the internets)!! Life & Style says that RPattz has dropped Kristen Stewart off at the section marked "IT'S OVAH" and has no plans of picking her back up. A sourcey says that he's moved on from Kristen to his Remember Me co-star Emilie de Ravin. The source watched the two canoodling at the Bowery Hotel in NYC on June 14th. When Elizabeth Reaser, one of the other actors...

As the best female golfers on the planet tee off at the U.S. Women’s Open in Bethlehem, PA, many viewers will not be tuning in to enjoy Lorena Ochoa’s fluid swing, Paula Creamer’s short game, or root on New Englanders Alison Walshe, Brittany Altomare, Anna Grzebien, and Briana Vega. They will instead be ogling the ongoing soap opera that the LPGA has become. There are many reasons for concern about the women’s golf tour. The lousy economy and unpopular leadership style of Commissioner Carolyn Bivens are culprits one and two. Golf World’s Ron Sirak reports that five of the seven...

CYBERsitter Stolen by Chinese The Peoples Republic of China's mandated Green Dam Internet filtering software contains significant portions of CYBERsitter! About three weeks ago we discovered that a Chinese software program called Green Dam - Youth Escort contains pirated code and data from CYBERsitter. Green Dam is a software product supposedly designed to protect kids in China from objectionable and potentially harmful content on the Internet, much like CYBERsitter does. There are a couple of significant differences however. The first is that is also blocks politically and socially sensitive information like Tibet, Democracy, Taiwan independence, and religious material. The...

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

Organized labor this week is warning Senate Democrats not to renege on trade protections included in House climate change legislation that would buffer domestic manufacturers from cheap consumer products made in China and elsewhere. “We need to have global warming legislation that makes sure we don’t create perverse incentives that encourage these energy-intensive industries to leave the United States and invest elsewhere in the world where they don’t have the same environmental costs,” said David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance. The Blue Green Alliance is a coalition of unions and environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the...

(CNN) – Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told an interviewer that he could not say whether or not President Barack Obama is a socialist, and that the president would not have been elected if he had been honest with Americans about his agenda. Bush would not answer the question of whether he agreed with the assessment of some congressional Republicans that the president is a socialist. "I don't know. Define socialism for me," he told Esquire magazine. "It's a word… I believe he's a collectivist. He believes that through collective action, through government, you can solve more problems." He added...

As America's largest city without rail transit, some people want San Antonio to “keep up” by building light rail. You need to know only one thing: Light rail is really expensive. I mean, really, really expensive. The average mile of light-rail line costs two to five times as much as an urban freeway lane-mile. Yet in 2007 the average light-rail line carried less than one-seventh as many people as the average freeway lane-mile in cities with light rail. Do the math: Light rail costs 14 to 35 times as much to move people as highways. The Government Accountability Office found...

Mumbai yesterday, London tomorrow! This is the message sent out by BBC’s investigative reports on 26/11 which have revealed Pakistan’s skulduggery in its starkness. Terrorists have been called terrorists, not ‘militants’. Violent Islamism has been ruthlessly exposed Mumbai’s 26/11 tryst with Islamism and its hours of terrorist hell were shown in vivid detail on prime time British television. The first was a half-hour report on BBC’s Newsnight programme with a commentary by Richard Watson. The second was Channel 4’s hour-long Despatches documentary. Both films drew heavily on tape recordings of the instructions from controllers in Pakistan to their Pakistani terrorist...

There has been a punk rocker type of hair salon next to my office for the past 8 years. All of the employees and their clients are covered from head to toe with tattoos and body piercings. It has been a very robust business all these years. They had nearly a dozen stylists working at a time, charging $40 for just a haircut. This hair salon has constantly held anti-republican\pro-liberal fund-raisers. For example, during the 2004 election they had a "wax a Bush for Kerry" promotion. There would usually be some disrespectful effigy of Bush in front of their window....

Since my appearance on MSNBC regarding Sarah Palin has generated so much conversation, I felt it might be a good idea to expand upon the points I made while debating the commentators. I realize my comments fly in the face of conventional wisdom and are contrary to the analysis given by most Republican consultants. That understood, I think there are three good reasons that the Palin resignation could (key word: could) be a good move for her on a long term basis: 1) The money angle (as Charlie Cook covered this week). 1. The Palin’s aren’t wealthy. They haven’t reached...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the Nazi term 'Judenrein' in a recent meeting with the German foreign minister to condemn the Palestinian demand that West Bank settlements be removed, a confidant of the premier has said. "Judea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein," the confidant quoted the prime minister as telling Frank-Walter Steinmeier earlier this week. Asked how Germany's top diplomat responded to hearing the term used by the Nazis to refer to areas "cleansed of Jews", the confidant said, "What could he do? He basically just nodded." According to the confidant, Netanyahu had encouraged cabinet colleagues to deploy the term...

In all the focus on Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposed changes in the school system, his suggestions for higher education have got neglected. To some degree, this was redressed in the discussion in Parliament on Tuesday, where the HRD Minister spoke of making it easier for quality institutions to call themselves full-fledged universities, rather than merely deemed universities. The implication was that if an institution could be trusted with making intellectual and physical investments and maintaining standards, it needed to be freed from the shackles of the bureaucracy in New Delhi. Similarly, the idea that first-rate foreign universities...

Obama’s First Military Order byPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org Don’t shoot back!Don’t pick the poppies!And don’t bother the women and men in burqas!These are the new rules of engagement for leathernecks in Afghanistan. Sound incredible?They’re true.Welcome to the modern Marine Corps under Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama

A week ago there was a lot of buzz about the sudden announcement that Sarah Palin would be leaving office as the governor of Alaska. There were no specific reasons given so speculation abounded and I am not about to add to that or any musings about her political future. The one thing that is beyond dispute as a contributing factor to her departure is the fact that ever since that army of lawyers and investigators descended on Juneau with her selection as McCain’s VP, she has had to defend herself against one groundless accusation after another. She has racked...

We’ve heard this story before [1]: America’s metropolitan areas are losing out to its rural areas [2] when it comes to getting stimulus dollars. What we didn’t know is by how much. “The 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money” and they “contribute three-quarters of the nation’s economic activity,” according to today’s New York Times. The Times tells you that this trend will continue. That may or may not be the case. States had a June 29 deadline to obligate, or decide how to spend, 50 percent of...

White House Press Corps Spent the Fourth of July Hanging Out With Obama, Off the Record By John Cook, 12:44 PM on Thu Jul 9 2009, 1,046 views (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp) Copy this whole post to another site Slurp cancel select site advertising consumerist deadspin defamer fleshbot gay fleshbot gawker gizmodo idolator io9 jalopnik jezebel kotaku lifehacker valleywag artists gawkershop Reporters from more than 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We...

posted by paulburka at 9:52 AM Perry’s twelve-point lead is the same as his advantage in last month’s Texas Lyceum poll, which was conducted by the same pollsters — Perry 33, Hutchison 21. Both that poll and this one showed that a large number of voters were undecided or preferred someone else. The Democratic primary results, which show Kinky Friedman ahead of Tom Schieffer, are irrelevant until the field grows. Favorability Perry 42% favorable, 32% unfavorable Obama 43% favorable, 46% unfavorable The Lyceum poll had Obama’s favorability rating in the state as a hard-to-believe 68%, and Perry’s favorable/unfavorable was 57/30....

The Des Moines Register reports that the Iowa GOP is courting Palin to campaign and headline their chief fundraiser. Go to Conservatives4Palin, because the DesMoines Register cannot be used at FR due to copyright. Conservatives4Palin on Palin stepping up in Iowa.