Free Republic

The president is in big trouble. He continues to approach a moment of truth. He had better get control of his presidency or he might see it spin out of control and not recover. The month of August couldn't have gone any worse. Town hall protesters picked apart the bill and citizens made vocal display of their dissatisfaction with the bill. The administration picked a fight with Sarah Palin and suddenly the president was trying to convince the public his bill "won't kill grand ma". He was telling everyone the public option would merely add competition. At the same time,...

After 17 years together, Bill Slimback and Bob Sullivan couldn't wait another minute to get married. So they didn't. With Vermont's new law allowing same-sex marriage only a minute old, they tied the knot in a midnight ceremony at a rustic lodge, becoming one of the first couples to legally wed under a law that took effect at midnight Monday. Dressed in suits, saying their vows under a large wall-mounted moose head, the two Whitehall, N.Y., men promised their love, exchanged rings and held hands during a modest 17-minute ceremony. Moose Meadow Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson, who's also a Justice...

The Café des Artistes has been doing a steady restaurant business in New York City since 1917, but is now forced to close its doors. One of the main reasons for this happens to be the fact that the Café is unfortunate enough to be a union restaurant and the exorbitant costs of supporting a union workforce has contributed to killing the business. A blog called the 212DressingRoom, a website about New York fashion, culture, art and other rather Bohemian subjects, has detailed the sad end of the long time café written by the owner of the place, Jennifer Lang....

A Florida man was unable to cash a Bank of America check because the bank required a thumbprint, and he had no arms. WTSP has the story of Steve Valdez, who tried to cash a Bank of America check written by his wife to him. He took the check to a BoA branch, presented two forms of picture ID, and was prevented from cashing the check because he couldn't provide a thumbprint. The manager refused to accommodate Valdez, suggesting that he open an account if he wanted to cash the check. We've written before about consumers' discomfort about having to...

Want an example of why government healthcare in the U.S. is a dangerous proposition? USA Today has a lengthy story on kidney dialysis and how new research is showing that having dialysis treatments more often seems to be keeping patients alive and healthy longer than the traditional thrice weekly treatments. The piece also sadly shows that the U.S. has higher rates of early death of dialysis patients than other western nations. Why is that, you might wonder? It’s because Medicare won’t pay for more than three treatments a week so the national standard has become thrice weekly because that is...

Congressman: Holder should expand prosecutor's inquiry to include Cheney By Michael O'Brien - 09/01/09 12:29 PM ET Attorney General Eric Holder should expand a special prosecutor's investigation into detainee abuse during the Bush administration to include high-ranking officials like Vice President Dick Cheney, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. Nadler defended Holder's decision last week to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuse and potential torture conducted by CIA officials during the Bush administration. "My criticism of the attorney general is that he should not limit the investigation to people in the field who may have committed torture, but...

"...Someone out there owes us an explanation. Someone not human enough to stop Sunday evening after they ran over my cat not three yards from my driveway. Thankfully, the cat didn't suffer. As I gently scooped my orange-furred pal off the road, I wondered what kind of person drives away after killing a member of my family. His name was Doctor. I'm not a cat person, but if you knew Doctor, you didn't have much of a choice. He threw himself at you until you had no recourse but to love him. His eyes were slightly crossed and he drooled...

In what has to be one of the most extreme appointments yet by the Obama Administration, ex-Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks has just been made an adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy - a move Brooks describes as “my personal government bailout.” Bailout is certainly the right word for someone who appears to have no relevant national security qualifications for the position. She does though have experience working as Special Counsel for George Soros’s Open Society Institute in New York, and as a former adviser to Harold Koh, the hugely controversial...

As Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar prepare for baby No. 19, they have a big hurdle ahead of them: coming up with another name that starts with the letter J. Let's face it, they're probably running out of good ones! So Jim Bob told PEOPLE that the family would welcome a little assistance: "We'd love to hear from the readers at PEOPLE.com to come up with a special name for this child." While there are many J names still available, many of them might not be the right fit for the newest Duggar. And, we can't have any repeats so...

MISSOULA, Mont. – Gray wolf hunting was set to begin in the Northern Rockies, even as a federal judge eyed a request to stop the killing of the predators just four months after they were removed from the endangered species list. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said Monday he would rule as quickly as he could on a last-minute injunction sought by environmental and animal welfare groups opposed to the hunts in Idaho and Montana. Hunters were poised to head into the field Tuesday in Idaho, where a quota allowed as many as 220 wolves to be killed. Montana's season...

At a recent Congressional town hall meeting I attended, I was astounded by the positions being taken by the outnumbered group of advocates for socializing American medicine. The Founding Fathers – a group whose distrust and skepticism about the size and scope of the national government is epic – were surely doing back flips in their graves as seemingly intelligent Americans willfully stood up and championed the notion of handing over their healthcare to bureaucrats in Washington. Regardless of your political leanings, it was a chilling sight to see a group of citizens standing and applauding the loss of their...

Here's someone who knew... Obama has experience in how a terrorist is viewed by the public, William Ayers who bomb the Pentagon, NYC Police Headquarters and U.S. Capitol mailroom was the President's close friend for 2 decades and Obama launched his political career in the living room of the home of Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn...

Ever since Obama's new rules of engagement in Afghanistan, we have been losing more soldiers than ever there. Now it looks like Obama might not be sending them any help. It is a shame that our great troops have to serve under this man.

Glenn Beck has recently been pointing out some dangerous appointments by the Obama administration, including the naming of Mark Lloyd as the FCC's Chief Diversity Officer. Lloyd believes in enforcing so-called "diversity" of opinion on the broadcast media through local control and accountability rules in order to suppress the conservative voices with whom Lloyd and other leftists disagree. But as disturbing as this appointment is to those of us who believe in the First Amendment, it pales in comparison to the appointment of Arif Alikhan to serve as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security....

With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum. Under the agreement, London-based Diageo PLC will receive tax credits and other benefits worth $2.7 billion over 30 years, including the entire $165-million cost of building a state-of-the-art distillery on the island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory. Virgin Islands officials say the arrangement complies with the letter and spirit of tax law and will help the islands' sagging economy. Captain Morgan is now produced in...

The Iran Countdown Annie Hamilton It's not as though we haven't been WARNED repeatedly. In the eight short years since September 11th, we've watched, analyzed and worried about Iran and the possibility that they would gain access to nuclear weapons, and for good reason. There is ample evidence that this Regime has aggressively pursued the development and acquisition of nuclear technology since the early '80's. In his book, "The Iran Threat" Alireza Jafarzadeh describes how Alireza Assar, a Physicist who trained in Scotland and Italy was approached in 1985 by Commanders from the IRGC who recruited him to begin work...

An Orlando, Florida, attorney has filed court documents to support his contention that a Columbus, Ohio-area mosque has ties to terrorist groups and would present a clear and present danger to a 17-year-old Christian convert from Islam who fled to Florida in fear of her life. OneNewsNow reported on Monday, Rifqa Bary fled from her parents after she claims her father threatened to kill her when he learned from members of his mosque, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Columbus, Ohio, that Rifqa converted from Islam to Christianity. Rifqa is staying with a Christian foster family in Orlando pending a...

Due to the economy and weak real estate market, Miles Brannan is raffling off his luxury home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The raffle is attracting buyers from around the world due to both the appealing price of $10 per ticket and international interest in U.S. real estate. Brannan's raffle is a great deal for foreign investors who want to break into the market because the deed and title will be transferred to the lucky winner free and clear. There will be no need for a jumbo mortgage or creative financing, making the $10 investment an even more attractive offer. "The...

Preventive services for the chronically ill may reduce health-care costs, but they are unlikely to generate the kind of fantastic savings that President Obama and other Democrats have said could help pay for an overhaul of the nation's health system, according to a study being published Tuesday. Using data from long-standing clinical trials, researchers projected the cost of caring for people with Type 2 diabetes as they progress from diagnosis to various complications and death. Enrolling federally-insured patients in a simple but aggressive program to control the disease would cost the government $1,024 per person per year -- money that...

When new information about Americans who had cooperated with the Soviet KGB began to emerge in the 1990s, no individual case generated as much controversy as that of the journalist I.F. Stone, who had long been installed in the pantheon of left-wing heroes as a symbol of rectitude and a teller of truth to power before his death in 1989. Charges about Stone’s connections with the KGB have been swirling about for more than a decade, prompting cries of outrage among his passionate followers. Until now, the evidence was equivocal and subject to different interpretations. No longer.In the early 1990s,...