Free Republic

This is in response to Mr. Cazalet’s and other letters over the past week. The man on the Cable News told me today that if I dare voice any opposition to any of President Obama’s policies or suggested laws, that I was a “Racist.” Other’s stated that I am harming our country if I speak out in opposition to any of President Obama’s programs. They tell me that I should go along with the “Change” and not form or express any Opinions that may differ from his. They are telling me that the present Administration is our only hope to...

Anti-Semitism is essentially hatred of capitalism and excellence. An NRO Q&A Would you pass it? Kathryn Jean Lopez sat down with George Gilder, author of The Israel Test, and asked him a few questions about Israel. KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What’s the Israel Test and who is administering it? GEORGE GILDER: Do you admire and emulate excellence and accomplishment, even if it excels your own? Or do you envy and resent it? And try to tear it down? That’s the Israel Test and it is administered by cosmic law — the law of capitalist success: The good fortune of others is...

Look, as I’ve always said the most important quality, in a man, is humility. And I want to lead America, by example. Lots of Americans sit around and uh, wonder how I can stand to be so awesome day in and day out. And I’m not going to lie to you, it’s a difficult balance. My humility always returns when I look to my wife, Michelle. She’s more of a man than I’ll ever be, and she can bench-press triple her weight, which is no small number. Roughly speaking, it’s slightly less than the deficit. And uh…I understand this is...

HAVANA, July 30 (Reuters) - Havana's famous seaside avenue, the Malecon, could be mistaken for Hollywood Boulevard this week as four high profile film stars come to the Cuban capital in the splashiest sign yet of warming U.S.-Cuba relations. Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan arrived in Cuba on Wednesday, with del Toro in town to pick up an award and the other three working on a "research project," a spokesman for the group said on Thursday. The spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said the stars were accompanied by other people in the movie...

Dr.Michael Brown Director of the Coalition of Conscience. Statement to the media complete text, July 25,2009 "We are here today to reach out and resist –– to reach out to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community with compassion, as neighbors and friends and fellow-workers, and to declare God’s great love for GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] people. And we are here to resist the gay activist agenda and to send a message to the nation. As followers of Jesus, we first confess our own sins –– our lack of ardent love for homosexual men and women, our lack...

As many already know, Mr. Andy Martin has had "less than user-friendly" cooperation from the State of HI regarding the requests he intended to file via the Uniform Information Practices Act. He claims he requested UIPA information via mail service and received a packet, but "no forms" ! Recently, requests were made to the Hawaiian Department Of Health by U.S. citizens requesting information that the UIPA Laws within the State of Hawaii unequivocally support the release of, regardless of the party to whom the information pertains. I personally do not expect the DOH to provide any of these people the...

PALM BAY, Fla. -- Police shot a dog Thursday while responding to a domestic disturbance in Palm Bay. Officers, with guns drawn, approached a house on Geary Street. That's when a pit bull charged at officers. Officers say they were forced to open fire. "I myself fired a bean bag, less lethal round, hitting the pit bull in the head. The other officer fired a 9-mm, hitting the pit bull in the right rear leg," explained Sgt. Don Smith, Palm Bay Police Department. The dog survived the shots. Police took the dog, along with two others, into custody. Police also...

CMA CGM, Hapag Lloyd, Hamburg Sud to reduce capacity on direct services CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd and Hamburg Sud will reduce vessel capacity by combining two of their liner services in August into a new direct service between the East Coast of South America and North Europe. The joint service will consist of two weekly rotations to replace the two services they now operate separately on the same route, the SAFRAN service operated by CMA CGM and Maruba and the two SAEC services operated by Hapag-Lloyd. The three carriers said the two rotations would better match the capacity on this trade...

Bryan, Texas SNIPPET: "As the situation eased, officials scaled back the number of mandatory evacuations. As of 8:50 p.m., only about 1,000 people were affected by the evacuations." SNIPPET: "John Carver with El Dorado Chemicals reports the plant on Highway 21 is a "typical dry blend fertilizer" facility. He reports a crew was welding in an empty ammonia nitrate storage bin when a spark started a small, smoldering fire. Two workers were in the building at the time of the fire; both escaped uninjured. Firefighters quickly responded to the scene only to discover they could not use water to battle...

The birth debate about Obama is real enough, but it is legally complicated, as analyzed by legal beagle Andrew McCarthy at National Review. No judge is going to question the Constitutional qualifications of an elected president. I'm sorry, but that's the practical reality. The judge is going to follow stare decisis -- the sheer weight of commitments that cannot be reversed without creating chaos. Once the political system of the United States, the voters, the media, and the politicians themselves are all committed to the proposition that Obama is president, trying to reverse it would mean riots in every city...

As the old saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat. By the same token, there is more than one way to lose liberty. Specifically, liberty can be taken away or given away. Perhaps history's most famous example of giving away freedom is the 1938 Munich Agreement. Brittan's Neville Chamberlain and other European leaders believed they could stop the advance of Nazi Germany with a policy known as Appeasement. The Munich Agreement allowed Germany to vastly expand its borders without military opposition. In the days following the summit Chamberlain fatefully declared that they had achieved "peace in...

THERE is a war going on in America right now, and they are not taking any prisoners. It is a race war, but you would not know it. Everyone involved couches their comments in clever, carefully disguised language that only the combatants know. Most of the incoming artillery is directed at President Barack Obama, the first African American to assume that high office. It is not about scoring points in the short run, although that would be nice. No, those pushing the racial warfare have a far loftier goal in mind—rallying enough whites to believe that Obama is a lousy...

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Four veteran Hollywood police officers were placed on administrative leave Wednesday after they allegedly falsified a police report to cover up a crash involving a fellow officer.

There are several new polls out over the past 24 hours that show more problems for President Obama. The trend lines are consistent: declining support for his health-care plan, rising worries about the deficit and slippage in his approval ratings. But what if the polls are wrong? Not wrong in the sense that they have incorrectly charted a downward slope for the president after six months in office, but wrong in the sense that they don't entirely capture the dynamic of this moment in the Obama presidency. I raise that question after spending Wednesday night in Towson observing a focus...

The Republican Party seems to be gaining some traction in attacking President Obama's agenda and pulling him down a peg or two in public esteem. This contrasts with the GOP's often ineffective and flailing performance during the first phase of Obama's administration. The lack of a unified message created a sense of conservative drift and confusion. And it didn't help that the party appeared too closely tethered to voices from the past, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and to the abrasive, hard-line ideologues of today, such as radio host Rush Limbaugh. But...

A new life is started the moment a human sperm cell unites with a human egg. Sounds simple, doesn't it? A person can decide for himself, but he will need to follow along very closely to catch all of the details and carefully piece them together, just as he would follow a skillful mystery...

Well... he almost got away with it. ... but he got caught. A seven year old boy took Sheriff deputies on a chase. The reason? He didn't want to go to church because it was too hot..

Abortion measure passes, then fails, in House Thursday, July 30, 2009 An anti-abortion amendment to a sweeping health overhaul bill was voted down in a House committee late Thursday — a dramatic reversal just hours after the measure initially was approved. The amendment said health care legislation moving through Congress may not impose requirements for coverage of abortion, except in limited cases. It was approved in the Energy and Commerce Committee after conservative Democrats joined Republicans to support it. But committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., invoked House rules that allowed him to bring up the amendment for a second vote,...

“I think we will probably have to begin raising rates sometime in the not-too-distant future,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser told Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal in an interview. A renowned inflation hawk at the Federal Reserve is at it again, trying to pull more dovish Fed officials under his wingspan of influence to get them to do more to battle incipient inflation.

July 31, 2009 by Phyllis Schlafly The House Democrats' health care bill is entitled "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." No clue is given as to how long we will have a choice, but it will probably be only until the "public option" chases private insurance out of business. The bill's subtitle states its purpose as health care for everyone, reducing "the growth in health care spending," "and for other purposes." Note that the goal is not to reduce spending but only the "growth" in spending, and we need to worry about the "other purposes" that will be added...