Free Republic

A school principal has apologized for showing a video at an assembly that a politically conservative group leader is calling "radical, leftist propaganda." Children at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington were shown a short video called "I pledge" on Aug. 28. The video opens with an image of President Barack Obama and part of a speech in which he says, "Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other." The video then features celebrities making pledges about how...

CT (Democrats)POLITICANS PLAY SOLITARE, WATCH BASEBALL DURING BUDGET DEBATE IN CONNECTICUT... Photo on DrudgeReport.com I guess it could be worse…they could be working on actual legislation.

An overflow crowd of about 1,200 people attended a boisterous town hall meeting Monday night in Petaluma on the national health overhaul, many expressing support for a proposed government-run program and others shouting it down. Nearly 100 shut out of overflowing meeting The two-hour meeting, run by Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey, was the first and only chance for many Sonoma and Marin County residents to ask questions and air comments before Congress reconvenes after Labor Day to consider the pending legislation. Dozens spoke on both sides of the debate amid constant jeers and chants from an audience that filled every...

Nicholas Winton was a 30-year-old British stockbroker in the summer of 1939, and had been planning to spend his vacation in Switzerland. But when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in March of that year, he obeyed the secret dictates of his heart and traveled to Prague instead. He was not given any official mission, he had no diplomatic connections, he had no secret contacts. But thousands of children, many of them orphans, were already anxiously awaiting their future in various camps there.

There is considerable irony involved when a Russian warns Americans against what is taking place before their eyes as President Obama seeks to transform and ultimately acquire dictatorial powers by a series of steps that are both bold and obvious. In April, Stanislav Mishin’s post on his blog, Mat Rodina, was published in Pravda. The title was “American capitalism gone with a whimper.” Having lived under Communist rule in the former Soviet Russia, Mishin and his fellow Russians were literally freed by the fall of that regime that began with the overthrow of the Czar in 1917 by the Bolsheviks....

Is there anyone out there who needs any more proof that the usurper that sits illegally in the President’s chair in the Oval Office of the White House is, bit by bit, piece by piece, and day by day, in the process of totally destroying the democratic republic that once was the United States? With 80 percent of the communications network of this country shut down, for all intents and purposes, regarding reports on anything that is not popular with that usurper, you might say that they are in his back pocket.

Norton Mattoon Thomas ran for president six times as the Socialist Party candidate. From his own lips: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation without knowing how it happened ... The Democrat Party has adopted our platform." And that was 1944, 65 years ago. Socialism is nothing except an effective means to control people. Germany’s national socialism of the 1930s went straight for the jugular of the health system also. Control a nation’s health and...

"Before the Speech: Short readings. Notable quotes excerpted (and posted in large print on board) from President Obama's speeches about education. What are our interpretations of these excerpts? Based on these excerpts, what can we infer the President believes is important to be successful educationally?" -- from Dept. of Education, Grades 7-12 Menu of Classroom Activities: Pres. Obama's Address to Students Across America, Sept. 8, 2009 [emphasis added] Great news. Our leader will be addressing all schoolchildren on September 8th. And the Department of Education has helpfully prepared a menu of activities for the day. As you'll note above, 7-12th...

There has not been a lot of coverage of this. It happened back in July and is only now winding its way through the federal system. Barack Obama and his administration are about to significantly drive up the costs of federal building construction. This is an astonishing reach. The Office of Management and Budget has directed that any federal construction over $25 million benefit unions. The order would make all federal construction projects 10-20% more expensive by requiring all contractors to either use union workers or apply inefficient union apprenticeship and work rules to their employees. Contractors would also be...

The two American television reporters imprisoned in North Korea for over four months have written an article describing the circumstances surrounding their arrests and detention, claiming they were arrested on Chinese soil. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who work for the American Current TV channel, were arrested in March and put on trial after allegedly crossing the North Korean border without entry permits and sentenced to 12-years in a labour camp.... In the lengthy article posted on Current TV's website, the women said they never intended to cross a frozen river into North Korea and were “firmly back” on Chinese...

Ezekiel Emanuel is upset.  The president's health care czar sees the growing resistance to his vision, to his brave new world of government-run "communitarian" health care in which politicians and bureaucrats control one-sixth of the economy and 100% of our bodies. He doesn't quite understand how it all came apart on him, but he does know who started the unraveling: Sarah Palin. Where does she get off attacking him? Sarah Palin, it seems forever Sarah Palin. And he wonders, as have so many others, what it takes to put a stake through her heart?  People should listen to him, not...

President Obama’s campaign organization, Organizing for America, goes way, way too far. Team Obama wants to use 9/11 to push back against protesters, referred to as “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists” by calling Senators in support of the Obamacare public government option. Today, the Obama campaign folks sent out a notice to “grassroots” supporters about the planned 9/11″health care organizing event”: What day? Our US Senators return to DC the Tues after Labor Day. That next FRIDAY, Sep 11, is Patriot Day, designated in memory of the nearly three thousand who died in the 9/11 attacks. All 50 States are coordinating in...

Will white Americans now name their sons after Muslims?

Securities and Exchange Commission Inspector General David Kotz has issued his long-awaited report on how the agency missed the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. In a statement e-mailed to CNBC Monday afternoon, Kotz said the 450-page report is the result of an exhaustive, eight-month investigation. .....

Asian stock markets pulled back Wednesday, sending Japan's benchmark down nearly 3 percent, after an overnight sell-off on Wall Street amid fears about the U.S. financial sector. Selling across the region was broad, with banks, commodity producers and exporters taking big hits. Oil prices rebounded slightly to trade just above $68 a barrel, while the dollar weakened against the yen. Investors were showing little appetite for risky assets after U.S. markets tumbled as rumors about escalating troubles in the banking sector revived concerns about the health of the financial industry and the economy as a whole. After a powerful six-month...

The changes did not make all men "people" or remove male references to God, but instead involved dropping gender-specific terms when translators judged that the original text didn't intend it. So in some verses, references to "sons of God" became "children of God," for example. Supporters say gender-inclusive changes are more accurate and make the Bible more accessible, but critics contend they twist meaning or smack of political correctness.

Libya staged a lavish spectacle Tuesday, parading white-robed horsemen and gold-turbaned dancers as jets streaked overhead to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought Moammar Gadhafi to power in the oil-rich nation. The four-day festivities were designed to highlight the volatile leader's acceptance on the world stage, but were overshadowed by new controversies about the recent return of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. While African leaders held a summit to coincide with the celebrations, most Western leaders stayed away. Libya's decision to include a...

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi marked the 40th anniversary of the bloodless coup that brought him to power, with celebrations attended by African, Arab and Latin American leaders but largely ignored by the West. At the end of a two-hour show late Tuesday retracing the 40 years since Kadhafi ousted King Idriss in 1969, a brief video clip showed the return to Libya last month of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, but the western delegations present did not react. Kadhafi's party kicked off around midnight on Monday at the former US military base of Matega near Tripoli with a two-hour...

ARLINGTON — Property room worker Vernon Griffin is used to taking criminal evidence from police officers. But next week, one officer will give him something that could save his life. P.J. Brock, an 18-year veteran with the Arlington Police Department, is set to donate one of her kidneys to Griffin on Sept 9. The 56-year-old property and evidence technician has polycystic kidney disease and has been on dialysis for more than a year. The two met in 1993, when Griffin, a military veteran, began working in the Police Department’s traffic unit with Brock, a traffic investigator. Even after Griffin transferred...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised American Muslims for enriching the nation's culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. "The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country," Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday's daily fast. The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called "a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress."