Free Republic

For the past several days, FOX News' Glenn Beck has been exhorting his viewers to lay aside their ideologies and ask themselves, with open minds, whether what they are witnessing in the Obama administration is congruent with what they would expect of a President governing from somewhere near the center of the political spectrum rather than from the extreme left. A key figure upon whom Beck has focused his attention is Van Jones, Obama’s "Green Jobs Czar." Jones is one of approximately 32 czars whom Obama has appointed thus far. These czars have been described as "super aides" who work...

LANSING—Bills to help ensure that all Michigan gun owners are guaranteed the right to lawfully store firearms in their locked and privately owned vehicles while in an employer’s parking lot were introduced Thursday in the Michigan Legislature, said sponsors Sen. Roger Kahn and Rep. Paul Opsommer. Kahn, R-Saginaw Township, and Opsommer, R-DeWitt, were joined by Rep. Joel Sheltrown, D-West Branch, and Sen. Jim Barcia, D-Bay City, as primary bill sponsors. The bipartisan, bicameral measures protect the rights of gun owners storing firearms in their vehicles, as long as all current storage laws are being followed. The proposed laws would not...

Saw this article on supposed conservative intelletcual David Brooks and it was nauseating. This guy is the chief conservative columnist at the NYT and he makes Chris Matthews look like an amateur in his love for all things Obama. Among his greatest hits: That first encounter is still vivid in Brooks’s mind. “I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks says, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.” In the fall of 2006,...

Sexy golf caddies for hire banned from courses for 'damaging the sport' By Dan Newling 31st August 2009 It is - at the very least - a sure-fire way for even the least talented golfer on the course to be guaranteed a birdie. At the most, however, it is a sexist gimmick which will only strengthen golf's image as a game for fusty old men with rather 'traditional' views of women. The golfing community has been split by the birth of a controversial new caddy service which provides attractive, nubile women to carry players' clubs. Banned: [Pics in URL] Eye...

Stop embarrassing us, Mr. Rangel. ResignBy: Mark Tapscott Editorial Page Editor 08/28/09 4:52 PM EDT Want to understand why 2009 has witnessed the eruption of Tea Party and Town Hall protests of unprecedented intensity? Look no further than Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that writes tax law for the rest of us. A parade of steadily more serious revelations was capped with news that Rangel somehow forgot to report as much as half a million dollars in assets and income on his 2007 financial disclosure report. It's impossible...

Rod Blagojevich blames everyone but himself for his unceremonious ouster from the Illinois Governor’s office. Nothing new there. What is new is that you can read his off-the-wall accusations and circuitous logic in the leisure of your own home. Blagojevich’s book, which was supposed to drop on Sept. 8 is available for purchase now at a few local bookstores.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUre-TwijR0 Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr3pN1eyvpU

The Iraqi who threw his shoes at Pres. Bush will be getting out of jail after serving only nine months of what was originally a three-year sentence . . . and David Shuster is pysched. Reporting on the news at the end of MSNBC's 4 PM hour today, Shuster exclaimed: "Good for him!" Co-host Tamron Hall wasn't so sure, making the incontrovertible point that Shuster wouldn't be so happy if the guy who walked early had hurled his Hush Puppies at Pres. Obama. View video here.

Gang of 6 no more? Grassley was supposed to be the GOP's guy who was going to get a bipartisan health plan through Congress. Not only did he apparently come to his senses and realize that you can't take away your constituents' health care choices and survive as a Senator, he's outright opposing ObamaCare as a plank on which to get reelected in Iowa next year.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released its annual data on compensation levels by industry (Tables 6.2D, 6.3D, and 6.6D here). The data show that the pay advantage enjoyed by federal civilian workers over private-sector workers continues to expand. The George W. Bush years were very lucrative for federal workers. In 2000, the average compensation (wages and benefits) of federal workers was 66 percent higher than the average compensation in the U.S. private sector. The new data show that average federal compensation is now more than double the average in the private sector. Figure 1 looks at average wages. In...

Last week, NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergent denied claims that memos asking artists to draft Obama policy art came from his office at NEA. They did. You can see those memos themselves now, with the email addresses originating from Sergent's office at NEA. Also, the Official Obama healthcare website, Organizing For America, now features a post that calls ObamaCare opponents "Heirs of bin Laden" and "Right Wing Domestic Terrorists." And all that's just for starters.

The Russian security service released the crew of the Arctic Sea in Moscow on Sunday. The 11 members of the crew of the hijacked ship were flown from Cape Verde to Russia nearly two weeks ago. The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the men returned to their home town of Archangelsk, where they were met by their families. On Sunday, Russian authorities gave conflicting accounts of whether or not all of the crew would be released. The online portal life.ru reported that only nine members of the crew had been released. Rabbe von Hertzen of the Finnish National Bureau...

My wife and I saw "The Time Traveler's Wife" today. It was far better than I expected but destroyed by a Hollywood anti-gun rant. You see, the hero is killed at the end of the film in a hunting accident, shot by his father-in-law, an ultra-rich capitalist who is identified as a gun owner, NRA member, and avid hunter (and probably a racist, too) after the hero's dad rolls his eyes at such a dangerous fool. The writers and studio just couldn't make a fantasy yarn without poking conservatives in the eye.

The Obama team is producing a series of videos taking folks behind the scenes in the White House, and the latest is about First Lady Michelle Obama's kitchen garden. The video, debuting on AOL News, includes clips of Mrs. Obama talking about the garden, one of her signature projects since it ties in with other goals on her agenda -- encouraging healthy eating and opening up the White House to Washington area residents. Students from a nearby school have been invited to the White House on several occasions to help in the garden. The featured figure in the video is...

More than half a day after a Burnet County Jail inmate escaped from the correctional complex Sunday night, officials have resorted to searching homes in Burnet for the missing man. Dogs on the ground and helicopters in the air have turned up nothing in the search for Nuana Antonio Fuentes-Sanchez, 24, who went missing Sunday around 10:30 p.m. after a routine bed count alerted officials of his disappearance. He was being held on a $200,000 bond for charges of aggravated robbery in connection with a home invasion that happened April 14 in the Stone Mountain subdivision near Marble Falls .

Over ONE MILLION copies sold! On the NYTimes Bestseller List for 19 weeks, 12 weeks at #1!Buy it… read it… live it!“Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

As speculation swirls about which politicians will vie for the first open Massachusetts Senate seat in 25 years, the process of determining a successor for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy will hinge on the actions of the state Legislature. Current law provides for a special election to fill an open seat five months after a vacancy, a provision enacted by Democrats in 2004 during the presidential election, when Sen. John Kerry was running for president. The law would have prevented then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, from appointing a successor to the seat. Just days before his death, Kennedy sent a...

A Tarim Basin mummy photographed circa 1910 Photo: Aurel Stein The door creaked open, and there in the gloom of the newly opened room, perfectly preserved despite the passing of thousands of years, a red-haired mummy with Caucasian features stared back. It was a life-changing moment for archaeologist Professor Victor Mair, and ten years on it still gave him chills. Mair had stumbled upon the recently discovered corpses of a man and his family in a museum in the Chinese city of Ürümqi, but the shock waves of the find would be felt far and wide. The 3000-year-old Cherchen...

The White House on Monday fired back after former Vice President Dick Cheney called the Obama administration's decision to open a probe into alleged CIA abuses an "outrageous political act." White House Press Secretary Roberts Gibbs broadly dismissed Cheney's comments on "FOX News Sunday" as typical and unfounded. "This is the same song and dance we've heard since literally the first day of our administration," Gibbs said. "The vice president ... clearly had his facts on a number of things wrong." Gibbs did not call out Cheney on specific misstatements, but suggested the former vice president's criticism about a newly...

The Moscow City Court on Friday rejected an appeal by prosecutors to recognize “South Park” as an extremist cartoon, Interfax reported. In June, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ruled that the iconoclastic U.S. cartoon did not promote religious hatred and annulled a warning issued by prosecutors last September to 2x2 television about the extremist content of its cartoons. Basmanny district prosecutors had said the “South Park” episode “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics” about singing excrement was extremist in nature because it promoted “hatred between religions.” The prosecutors appealed the court’s decision July 24, but the Moscow City Court refuse to intervene Friday....