Free Republic

$2,000,000,000,000. That's the amount by which the Obama administration raised its ten-year estimate of the nation's budget deficit from the one it made only a few months ago. Now, $2 trillion is a lot of money. But even more significant is the fact that this revision represents almost a 30 percent increase -- no tiny percentage of the earlier $7 trillion figure. It seems that expenses are higher -- up 24 percent this year, the largest increase since the height of the Korean War -- than originally estimated, and revenues are lower. The resulting deficit, says Peter Orszag, Obama's budget...

ACTOR Macaulay Culkin is the mystery dad of Michael Jackson's son Blanket, it was claimed last night. The Home Alone film star is said to have donated sperm to help Jacko create his seven-year-old offspring - real name Prince Michael II - with an unknown surrogate mum. -snip-

US President Barack Obama is expected to moderate a September meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, President Shimon Peres said in an interview with Fox News Monday. Peres told the TV network that the two leaders would be meeting at the United Nations.

Prejudice in Paradise Hawaii Has a Racism Problem By Larry Keller Celia Padron went on a Hawaiian vacation last year, lured by the prospect of beautiful beaches and friendly people. She, her husband and two teenage daughters enjoyed the black sand beach at Makena State Park on Maui. But a Hawaiian girl accosted her two teenage daughters, saying, "Go back to the mainland" and "Take your white ass off our beaches," says Padron, a pediatric gastroenterologist in New Jersey. When her husband, 68 at the time, stepped between the girls, three young Hawaiian men slammed him against a vehicle, cutting...

Spending thousands of dollars on lab tests, Aleni Prokopius discovered that her newborn son was contaminated with trace amounts of heavy metals including mercury, which is used in the vaccine preservative Thimerosal. In this interview with Aleni Prokopius, you'll learn how vaccine injections can expose some children to one hundred times the methyl mercury of other children, depending on how the medical practitioner prepares and administers the vaccines. Aleni also explains how she worked to try to reverse autism and restore normal neurological function to her son through chelation and dietary changes. There's a protocol for natural health restoration that's...

Americans for Limited Government (ALG) has mounted a campaign against the nomination of Cass Sunstein to be the White House’s “Regulatory Czar” in order to prevent a “litigation nightmare.” ALG President Bill Wilson sent letters last week to farm organizations urging them to actively oppose the nomination. “What concerns me and I am sure will concern you is Mr. Sunstein’s extreme positions on animal rights,” Wilson wrote in his letter to the agricultural sector. “If put into law or regulation, these radical stands will destroy agriculture and threaten America’s ability to feed itself much less do any exporting of agricultural...

Below is the text of a speech which President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic gave last Sunday in Aix-en Provence (France). We thank President Klaus for his kind permission to republish his speech at this website. Thank you for the invitation to come to Aix, for giving me a chance to address this reputable audience where I see many friends and, above all, thank you for continuing to organize the Summer University. I only don’t understand why you call it Summer University of the New Economics. Which one is the old one? We have only one, good, old economic...

Depreciation is the highest cost associated with a new car. For that reason alone, the resell value of the car should be one of the most important considerations when you buy a new car. If you’re leasing a car, it is the most important factor in determining your lease payment. The following is the list of cars that are expected to retain more of their value in the next three years. See List of Cars with Top Resell Value...

"Dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel.” Those are the words used by Claire Rayner, herself a former nurse, to describe the way many nurses today treat elderly patients. Introducing a report by the Patients Association last week, she described shocking standards of nursing care in hospitals up and down the country. The stories are horrifying — old people neglected, lying in their own faeces and urine, hungry, thirsty and afraid, while nurses chat callously at the nursing station, indifferent to the suffering around them. Since the report was published the Patients Association has been flooded with hundreds of...

Among the servicers participating in the government’s mortgage modification program is a new recruit that’s not like the others. PennyMac, a firm founded by the former president and chief operating officer of Countrywide, buys distressed home loans on the cheap with the goal of modifying them and later selling them for a profit. The company, whose top management consists mostly of former Countrywide executives, now stands to receive up to $6.2 million in taxpayer money to modify those loans, through the Making Home Affordable program. The government’s incentive payments go primarily to the participating servicer, but some of the money...

Lawmakers in Uruguay passed a measure last week that would allow homosexual couples to adopt children, despite the strong opposition from the Catholic Church, voiced recently by Archbishop Nicolas Cotugno of Montevideo and other community leaders. The measure passed by a vote of 53-40 and was a modified version of the bill approved by the Uruguayan Senate on July 15. Now it must be sent back to the Senate for debate. In response to the bill’s passage, which comes two years after the country legalized gay unions, the spokesman for the group National Coordinator for Life, Nestor Martinez, called it...

The head of Britain’s top banking watchdog supports the idea of new global taxes on financial transactions, warning that a “swollen” financial sector paying excessive salaries has grown too big for society. Adair Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, says the debate on bankers’ bonuses has become a “populist diversion” and that more drastic measures may be needed to cut the financial sector down to size. He also says the FSA should “be very, very wary of seeing the competitiveness of London as a major aim”, claiming the city’s financial sector has become a destabilising factor in the British...

August 31, 2009 US commander General Stanley McChrystal - Afghanistan strategy is failing The existing force is due to rise to 110,000, including 68,000 Americans, by the end of this year Matt Spence in Washington and Deborah Haynes, Defence Correspondent The campaign in Afghanistan is failing and the strategies in place must be revised, the commander of US and Nato forces said today. General Stanley McChrystal described the situation in the country as "serious", but said success could be achieved there with a new approach. Gen McChrystal today delivered the results of his 60-day strategic assessment to US and Nato...

Woman didn't smell like alcohol, but car smelled like hamburger Tosha Sketo 2009-08-31 13:19:07 CRESTVIEW – A woman was arrested after parking her car toward the end of the Whataburger drive-through lane in Crestview and passing out over a half-eaten burger. Machelle Coleman, 33, of Crestview, was found slumped over her steering wheel by a Crestview Police Department deputy. She had a half-eaten burger on her left leg and lettuce and French fries were strewn across her lap, according to the deputy.After unsuccessfully attempting to awaken Coleman, the deputy called EMS. A few minutes later, Coleman woke up and...

It rotates. It has blinking lights, a disco ball, and a pole. And it's probably one of the wrongest toys you can give to any girl.

As if Obama’s health care proposals were not flawed enough, CBS News reports a previously unnoticed provision of the bill which makes a shambles of any privacy surrounding your federal tax returns. Under the House bill, the IRS is required to make available to the new government Health Choices Commissioner” established by the legislation and to each state health program all of your personal tax information. In a blog, CBSNews’ Declan McCullagh reports that “Section 431 (a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted grow income, the number...

Someone needs to remind Charles Schumer that the war of 1812 is over. The senior Senator for New York is ludicrously calling for sanctions against Great Britain over the role of the Labour government in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. The New York Daily News quotes Schumer as saying: “If it is proven that there was a quid pro quo, even though Britain is our friend, there ought to be some sanctions.” Schumer doesn’t outline exactly what those sanctions might be and his remarks were probably made without any thought or consideration, but his comments are deeply...

College Republicans Compiling List of Liberal Professors at Ohio School UT College Republicans President Matt Rubin, a junior majoring in political science and public administration, says the list is not an attempt to bash professors who have liberal ideas, but an attempt to speak out for students who may have been victims of political bias. Randiah Green, The Independent Collegian Uwire Monday, August 31, 2009 The University of Toledo's College Republicans are compiling a list of liberal professors who they claimed have a bias against conservative students. The list will include professors who students say have let their political views...

THE RANDY WEAVER CASE BY JIM OLIVER Another Federal Fiasco! BATF's entrapment of Randy Weaver led to the violent deaths of three people. Says his defense attorney, Gerry Spence: "What happened to Randy Weaver can happen to anybody in this country." Seeing his dog, Striker, shot to death by masked intruders clad in camouflage, Sammy Weaver, 14, fired back in fear for his life. The 4 ft., 11" tall youngster was hit in the arm, then shot in the back as he turned to run for home. He died instantly, killed by an agent of the federal government. Cradling her...

LONDON (Reuters) - A group of 200 Asians attacked a police patrol team with fireworks in Luton, north of London, where a right-wing march had been planned, police said on Sunday. In a statement Bedfordshire Police said 50 officers and six police horses had been called in the afternoon after a small team of constables and police community support volunteers had been attacked by about "200 members of the younger Asian community" in the Bury Park area of Luton.