Free Republic

"Reporters from roughly 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," John Cook writes at Gawker.com. "We reported that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's 'backyard bash' by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his column the next day, he deleted a reference to...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer sentiment soured in early July, slipping to its weakest since March, when confidence in the financial sector and economy were at a low ebb, the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers showed on Friday. Consumers' escalating concerns about an extended economic downturn, job security and erosion of wealth were the main factors depressing sentiment, the survey said. Recent income gains were reported by the fewest consumers in the more than fifty-year history of the survey, the statement said.

The New York Times has sent a survey to its print subscribers asking them how much they would pay for access to its website. From Bloomberg New York Times Co. said in a survey of print subscribers that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. Times Co. also asked whether subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site, in the poll confirmed today by Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free. Times Co. is contemplating...

Every lightning bolt Sacha Baron Cohen caught in a bottle with Borat three years ago turns to static in Bruno. The new film, which backstrokes into theaters on a tidal wave of publicity over its coarse material, proves just how rare a cinematic feat was Baron Cohen’s breakthrough role . Borat blended scripted sequences with Candid Camera-style pranks into one hilarious romp across America. Bruno attempts the same formula, but the staged sequences fall pancake flat while the Punk’d moments feel equally hollow. For the uninitiated, Bruno is Baron Cohen’s gay Austrian fashionista, an irrepressible elf desperate for fame and...

Thank goodness for the Chinese. Together with India, China helped guarantee that this week's G-8 meeting failed to reach any agreement on limiting carbon-dioxide emissions...The refusal of China and India to go along with the carbon-dioxide limits should be the death knell for the Cap and Trade bill currently being considered by the Senate. The legislation is a pretty hard sell. Even advocates admit restrictions would only have a small effect -- only a fraction of 1 degree Celsius, a virtually unnoticeable .07 degrees -- on global temperatures by 2050. ...an agreement without China, India and other developing countries can...

New regulations in Venezuela will require cable and satellite TV channels to carry speeches by President Hugo Chavez on a regular basis. The measures will apply to those stations that produce more than 70% of their content within Venezuela. The BBC correspondent in Caracas says this will apply to dozens of international broadcasters, which will be considered national stations. Government opponents said it was an attack on freedom of speech. The BBC's Will Grant in Caracas says when Mr Chavez deems it necessary, all national broadcasters in Venezuela must carry the president's speeches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNr8bWqrP5s&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_MdhG6bxao

So what’s fueling the strong run for GOP recruitment of House candidates? First, a small matter of timing. The last fundraising quarter just ended, and the National Republican Congressional Committee urges candidates to file papers and make it official at the beginning of a quarter, rather than the middle or end, lest a decent two weeks of fundraising look like a dismal total for three months’ time. But beyond that, if you’re a potential Republican candidate, this cycle appears to be the first since 2004 when you won’t have a strong wind in your face. In fact, with frustration about...

Excerpt from The American Thinker Article: Obama, Black Liberation Theology, and Karl MarxMay 28, 2008 Just one nugget from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation': "...it would be illusory and dangerous to ignore the intimate bond which radically unites them (liberation theologies), and to accept elements of the marxist analysis without recognizing its connections with the (Marxist) ideology, or to enter into the practice of the class-struggle and of its marxist interpretation while failing to see the kind of totalitarian society to which this process slowly leads."--Joseph Cardinal...

Heard Gordon just mention he is having Garry on during the 11am EST hour...Garry met with the BHO earlier this week in Russia.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday, 47 percent of people questioned would like to see the Senate vote in favor of Sotomayor's confirmation, with 40 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure. The poll suggests a partisan divide, with nearly seven in 10 Democrats supporting Sotomayor's confirmation, Independents split, and nearly two out of three Republicans opposing Senate confirmation. The percentage of those who would like to see Sotomayor confirmed in the CNN poll is lower than in other national surveys released in the past few weeks. "One possible reason why the CNN poll shows less...

My dear late father used to say that whenever a person's reaction is disproportionate to the stimulus, something else is at work. Keith Olbermann's "Worsting" of Ann Coulter on last night's Countdown [video] is a good illustration of the principle. Olbermann ostensibly awarded Ann his "Worst Person" for what was, after all, a rather mild swipe at Rachel Maddow, a tongue-in-cheek reference to her "raw sex appeal." So what had really gotten under Olby's skin? What caused him to refer to Ann as "putrid and evil"? Reference to the Coulter column in question reveals this paragraph, that Olbermann pointedly omitted...

The economic picture has overtaken, and finally begun to drown out, the political spin and hype generated by the White House and fanned by the cheerleaders in the mainstream media. Not even the New York Times can ignore the economic reality and its impact on the public’s assessment of the president’s performance. It has gotten so bad that even Jon Stewart is hollering at the president to just fix the economy...

He may be the world’s most powerful man but even Barack Obama is not immune to the charms of a nice bottom! At the G8 summit in Italy, he was snapped apparently checking out the perfect curves of a young lady. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy (54) was looking on in amusement… Oh là là, Monsieur le Président! So who was the lady in red who caught the eye of Obama - or should that be O-BUM-a? Her name is Mayora Tavares, she is 16 and she comes from Brazil. Mayora was at the G8 summit in Italy as part...

>Obama the dirty ole' man? Bambie, unaware he was being photographed, Checks out a Brazilian teenager. Let's Get Together

Obama’s decisions about when to act and when not to act have been consistently puzzling. He insisted on action when it came to the stimulus bill (which was passed without being read because action was needed so immediately) and we have only seen the economy worsen. He demanded action regarding the closing of Guantanamo Bay, but has yet to give anyone so much as a hint about what he plans to do with detainees currently being held there. Action absolutely needed to be taken when it came to Cap and Trade (again, passed by the House without having been read...

GENEVA, Switzerland, July 9 /Christian Newswire/ -- On the eve of the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth, Calvin 500, the international Quincentenary celebration concluded tonight at St. Pierre Cathedral in the old town of Geneva. Following a week of over 20 academic lectures, 15 expository sermons, with numerous other associated meetings, the commemoration concluded with a closing luncheon at Restaurant La Broche, with the Rev. Geoff Thomas of Wales, addressing the banquet. Later that afternoon, Dr. Henry Krabbendam and Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda spoke on "Reformation and Revival." Nearly 1000 participants enjoyed the festivities and addresses during...

It might be the start of a New Mexico political campaign season dominated by talk of ethics. With a blast of the icy air from inside the state Supreme Court's front door, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish stepped out into the summer heat Thursday and made it clear that it would take a while to outline her lengthy proposal to revamp ethics laws. "You might want to get into the shade," she told reporters gathered on the front steps. And a while it took. Denish, a second-term lieutenant governor, will seek the state's top executive post in 2010, in the wake...

Where the first Americans came from, when they arrived and how they got here is as lively a debate as ever, only most of the research to date has focused on dry land excavations. But, last summer's pivotal underwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico led by Mercyhurst College archaeologist Dr. James Adovasio yielded evidence of inundated terrestrial sites that may well have supported human occupation more than 12,000 years ago, and paved the way for another expedition this July. As part of their 2008 findings, the researchers located and mapped buried stream and river channels and identified in-filled sinkholes...