Free Republic

Tonight at 7:00 p.m., U.S. Congressmen Joe Barton (6th Dist.-Texas), Jeb Hensarling (5th Dist.-Texas), Sam Johnson (3rd Dist.-Texas), and Pete Sessions (32nd Dist.-Texas) will host a congressional field hearing on healthcare solutions at the Eisemann Center in Richardson. The free event will be open to the public. There will be parking but people are encouraged to take DART.

Danger-farking-close, JDAM hits Talibunny position only 70 meters away, potentially ruining their day. Note: Keep the sound on.....

Rick Perry's talk of secession appears to have buoyed efforts by Texas secessionists who want the governor to follow through. Hutchison calls Perry's rhetoric about secession "silly." At a rally Saturday on the Capitol steps, members of the of the Texas Nationalist Movement called on the governor and the Legislature to put a referendum on the state ballot on whether Texas should leave the union. At an anti-tax "tea party" protest in April, Perry touted states rights and raised the possibility of secession. On Saturday, secessionist speakers denounced the federal government in general - and the Obama administration in particular....

This is a MUST WATCH 13min video by a brilliant Bill Whittle No transcript yet.

This is an email I received from a friend this morning. A young boy needs our prayers.

... American junior tennis has had a major change in the last five years. Aspiring pros now commonly abandon regular school for home or online educational programs. Although alternative schooling is not new to junior athletics, tennis is perhaps the only sport whose full participation requires it because of year-round competition and travel. Smith persuaded Mkrtchian and three others to join a special U.S.T.A. training program. “It’s got to be a six-hour day,” Smith said. “It’s normal for foreigners.” Marcos Giron, then 15, was convinced after hearing about Roger Federer’s ambitious junior tournament schedule. But Giron was considering the option...

Barack Obama has apparently now been advised to shift the ground in the debate over health care reform, to get it away from discussions about specific provisions in the pending legislation (whether it will force us to unplug grandma or use our tax dollars to pay for others' abortions) and get it onto a far loftier moral high ground. This he did last weekend in a conference call to liberal clergy, urging them to endorse universal health care because of what he has decided is all part of the biblical injunction to "be our brother's keeper." Ostensibly, many moral theories...

THE SOURCE OF OBAMA’S ANTI-ISRAEL POLICY by E.W. Jackson Sr. thelastcrusade.org Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama’s policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization. Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He...

It’s an incredibly moving saga, the abduction and amazing emancipation of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was held captive for 18 years. The story throws the spotlight on something our post-modern culture has all but abandoned, to the detriment of our criminal justice system; that is, the existence of good and evil. Jaycee was only 11 years old when in 1991 she was abducted near her home in South Lake Tahoe, 170 miles from Antioch, which was where Phillip Garrido lived. Jaycee and her children, now aged 11 and 15, were kept in abysmal conditions in a hidden soundproof shed-and-tent compound...

The Tucson area Tea Party Coalition held a townhall healthcare meeting at Rincon High School in Tucson on Friday (August 28th). Over 1,000 people showed up at the event ... including one violent counter-protester. The ObamaCare supporter loudly interrupted the meeting immediately after a TPD officer thanked the group for always being civil and law-abiding at their events. The event protester shouted over our panelists incessantly and, when approached, hit one of the attendees in the face with his elbow. The man who was assaulted kept his cool and TPD promptly removed the protester from the auditorium. Two local TV...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nitrous oxide emissions caused by human activity have become the largest contributor to ozone depletion and are likely to remain so for the rest of the 21st century, a US study has concluded. The study by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency said efforts to reduce chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere over the past two decades were "an environmental success story. ... Emissions and production of those substances are regulated under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. But the treaty excludes nitrous oxides, which are emitted by agricultural fertilizers, livestock manure, sewage treatment, combustion and certain other industrial processes....

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has hauled in about $4 billion in profits from large banks that have repaid their obligations from last year's federal bailout, The New York Times reported Sunday. Critics of the bailout were concerned that the Treasury Department would never see a return on its investment. But the government has already claimed profits from eight of the biggest banks.

Quite contrary to the received wisdom concerning Islam's advance on Scandinavian soil, recent birth statistics from Stockholm, sole Scandinavian city boasting more than two million inhabitants, indicate that Muslim immigrants of Stockholm fail to keep up with native Swedes in this domain. According to today's edition of the free daily newspaper of City Stockholm, the inhabitants of Sweden's capital have lately been catching up with the rest of Sweden in terms of breeding, which actually is something rather unique. For a long time, Stockholm has been way behind the rest of the nation in this regard (- during the last...

For all the shouting that has dominated these town hall meetings on health care lately, they have yielded a few important insights. The first is that the town hall itself has probably reached the end of its usefulness in the Internet age; if you’re looking for thoughtful dialogue, you might as well hold your next meeting on the stern of a Somali pirate ship. The second is that we now have a visual sense of the kind of voter who is militantly opposed to Obama’s health care agenda and, more broadly, to the president himself... --snip-- But conservative theorists like...

AdMob released their monthly mobile metrics report for July and Android continues to increase its share.  Last month, Android pulled ahead of Windows Mobile.  Worldwide request from the Android operating system grew 40% month over month. This now gives Android a 7%  worldwide OS share and sets up a battle with RIM OS, the software that powers BlackBerry phones.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) today provided authorities in Ecuador and the U.S. with video recordings that reveal a $3 million bribery scheme implicating the judge presiding over the environmental lawsuit currently pending against the company and individuals who identify themselves as representatives of the Ecuadorian government and its ruling party. In the videos, the judge confirms that he will rule against Chevron and that appeals by the energy company will be denied -- even though the trial is ongoing and evidence is still being received.

FOX News preempted Sean Hannity's Friday show to continue its ongoing coverage of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. However, late last week, Hannity aired a segment about a tiny but telling story that got lost in all the Camelot hagiography. Hannity was joined by Culture of Corruption author Michelle Malkin to discuss a bizarre incident that was quickly labeled a "hate crime." As Hannity reported:Eleven windows were smashed at the Democratic Party headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Now immediately following that act of vandalism, the head of Colorado's Democratic Party alleged that the damage was probably inflicted by an opponent...

Trumpeting his own fanfare on Fox News Sunday, Dick Cheney is back. But it was the Obama administration itself that opened wide the gates for this self-vindicating return. With the release of the 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report on torture, and Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of prosecutor John H. Durham to investigate CIA abuses of detainees, a crossroads was reached, and who was standing right in its middle but the former vice president. No sooner

SPRING HILL, FL -- While showing off her JROTC uniform, 16-year-old Heather Lawrence told us joining the Army is her next big goal, to follow in the footsteps of her father and grandfather. "Our flag represents everything that our country is," she said. The teen says an issue over the American flag is why she was written up and handed a five-day suspension from Springstead High School this week for criticizing a Muslim student. Heather says the other girl was sitting down during the Pledge of Allegiance. "You know, I made a not-so-kind remark, and I do sincerely apologize for...

Almost everyone has known for months that the next biennial state budget would be a patchwork of overstated and phantom revenues, understated expenses, unwise and unnecessary borrowing, and billions in one-shot revenues. Gov. M. Jodi Rell moved the state closer to that reality last week by capitulating to your Democratic legislative supermajority on gigantic tax increases in the expectation of getting a comparatively small concession on spending. The immediate effects of her "compromise" aimed at closing the $8.56 billion biennial deficit for which she and the Democrats are responsible are bad enough: more than $1 billion in higher taxes confiscated...