Free Republic

BOSTON -- A state biologist and a team of Cape Cod fishermen became the first group to successfully tag a great white shark in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, placing tracking devices on two sharks off the coast of Chatham, according to the Department of Marine Fisheries. Biologists from the Massachusetts Shark Research Program have been closely monitoring the waters near Monomy Island to locate and identify sharks after five were spotted in the waters off Cape Cod on Thursday. At about 10 a.m. Saturday, Skomal and the crew of the fishing vessel Ezduzit identified a great white off the...

David Horowitz was on Glenn Beck today discussing Saul Alinsky, the strategy guru for the leftist radicals, like Van Jones, who are now taking control of this nation and making their best effort to destroy it. Alinsky gave his troops a manual on how to best go about their destructive designs in his book Rules for Radicals. Anyone who knows anything about the Left’s agenda will not be surprised to whom Alinsky dedicated the book: Satan. In his interview with Beck, Horowitz went into profound detail about how radicals operate and achieve their agendas. He stressed that one must judge...

teynposts Saturday, 05 September 2009 In this post, Kathy Shaidle kinda sorta implies that Jay Currie and I have gone nancy on her. Just to clarify, I think Jay's analysis (see below) is a very plausible explanation for Judge Hadjis' reasoning - assuming that he had any higher ambition than to unhoist himself from the petard Richard Warman had put him on. But for me personally it makes no difference what he thinks. In an exchange which didn't make his published report, Joseph Brean of The National Post asked me what I expected Parliament to do now, and I replied:...

The senator's partial term was marked by frustration and failure, experts say. BY WILLIAM MARCH TAMPA - Mel Martinez may go down in Florida history as the reluctant senator. During his short Senate career, from 2005 until this week, Martinez took stands on principle and stuck loyally by his friends, particularly President George W. Bush, even when it hurt him politically. But circumstances and his own mistakes conspired to mark his partial term with much frustration and little accomplishment, experts in Congress say. In an interview last week, Martinez acknowledged that frustration. "It is true," he said. "The Senate works...

If you were wondering whether San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom learned from his Howard Dean moment, wonder no more. One of gay marriages most vocal supporters gained national recognition when a group of Prop. 8 supporters used Newsom's own words to scare voters to support the measure that banned gay marriage in California. "This door's wide open now," Newsom said last year after the California Supreme Court ruled gay marriage to be legal. "It's going to happen, whether you like it or not." Newsom said the ad was "effective" at getting Californians to vote against Prop. 8. On Wednesday, Newsom...

Let's call this particular weekly address, "Obama the Disingenuous". President Obama once again talked about how our economy was built on spending rather than saving. This is true. He also threw out a couple of minor if not decent ideas to help savings. He wants to create a way to automatically allow someone to move their tax refund into a savings bond for instance. That's fine. He wants to allow people to automatically move their unused vacations and sick days into their 401k's. That's fine, though most good savers already max out their 401k's and the others will need that...

In contrast to a conversation that goes nowhere, last week, Doug Pennington of the Brady Campaign threw down on Megan McArdle. Obviously they took Megan’s comments seriously enough to respond to them. But Doug, in his response, ditches much of the usual Brady nonsense and actually talks about some real issues: Contrary to McArdle’s framework, the issue here isn’t whether firearms have a magical, mesmerizing power to make good people do bad things. The issue is whether fallible human beings carrying the best tool for killing people to a heated protest increases the possibility of a lethally violent outcome –...

van jones in another wild rant from 2003

This summer's health care debate has centered around the creation of a government-run insurance program to compete with those offered by private insurers. President Barack Obama says "public option" isn't intended to end private health insurance, repeatedly telling us that if we like our private plans, we'll be able to keep them. A government plan, he and congressional Democrats insist, will simply provide needed competition for private insurers. And this will be a good thing, of course, because competition leads to better service, lower costs, and more consumer choice. Now a cynic might question the sincerity of the president's newfound...

Pelosi loath to drop hammer on Rangel By: Glenn Thrush September 5, 2009 06:47 PM EST Why is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refusing a growing chorus of calls to drop the hammer on ethics-challenged Charlie Rangel? Because, at the moment, doing nothing creates a lot less trouble for Pelosi than doing anything, current and former House aides tell POLITICO. Stripping the Harlem Democrat of his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee would force Pelosi to make a series of unpalatable decisions about Rangel’s successor that would create a ruckus in the Democratic caucus. It would also infuriate the...

Few love stories could be as joyous and poignant as this one, about a couple who discovered love, despite physical limitations: It was always among the first things Dan Powell wrote in e-mails to prospective dates -- that he was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down. "It's one of those things that shouldn't matter, but does," he explained. Often, the responses he got, when communicating with women through online dating services, were swift and emotional: "They were like 'Well, I'm not really sure I'm ready for that.' Or 'Gee, I'm so sorry you went through that,' " recalls...

Here is a CNN video report saying the White House is considering drafting its own Health Care Bill which could be released following President Obama's speech Wednesday to a Joint Session of Congress. Sources indicate if the White House issues its own bill, it would "not include a Public Option," but would include a provision to allow "public insurance under certain circumstances." That sounds like another "back door" approach to Government Health Care, like "Co-Ops." This may be what Obama tries to revive his chances and break his downward spiral. But he may have as much trouble getting the Left...

With the economic problems and gross mismanagement at our County, State and Federal level, we have a chance in Contra Costa to finally reverse this trend. Of all the candidates running, attorney and family man David Harmer of the San Ramon area has the background to handle the needed clean-up and reforms in a fiscally responsible manner. As a smart and articulate attorney he understands the Constitution, the complex world of finance that needs correction, and the backbone to reform and roll-back the outrageous public pensions that the Times keeps exposing to we loyal readers. His Democratic opponents, on the...

Not since the 1930's and FDR have the politics of class envy, class warfare, resentment, and covetousness been used with such effectiveness than during the current health care debate. Barack Obama, the czar of many czars, is the self-appointed Class Envy Czar. It's the same Democrat party which preaches that, "you can't legislate morality," that is now describing passing health care reform as even being a "moral obligation." The same party that sermonizes the principle of "separation of church and state," now desperately invokes the Bible to try to hustle their socialized medicine message.

The rate at which jobs were cut slowed in August, but the gap to be filled will be with us for a while. With 14.9 million people looking for jobs according to Moody's Economy.com, the unemployment rate won't hit 5% -- considered "normal" -- until 2014. To put this in perspective, we still have one presidential election and two mid-term contests between now and a full employment recovery.

White House Discloses 10 More Ethics Waivers for Administration Officials September 05, 2009 2:52 PM Calling President Obama's Executive Order on Ethics for Executive Branch personnel "the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history," White House counsel Norm Eisen on Friday announced 10 more waivers for Obama administration officials. The waivers will allow the officials to participate with persons with whom and entities with which "the appointees formerly had a professional relationship," Eisen wrote, "because there was a compelling public interest in allowing it." The waivers are for: * NASA administrator Charles Bolden; Bolden served as a consultant to the...

With the Labor Day weekend upon us, it cannot be said enough that the engine of the US is us, her citizens. From those that are perceived to carry the lowliest of jobs to the highest CEO, it is the fruits of our labor, and the regulations we must abide by to harvest those fruits, that enable the elite in the beltway. Truly a fact I believe they have long since discarded as inconvenient. Today, I am reminded that our military are also toiling daily... sans days off and always on call. And while all deserve mention and our respect,...

THERE ARE TWO U.S. economies: One is collapsing, even as another struggles to rise. The economy that is crashing is the one based on consumption, debt and environmental destruction. The emerging one is based on production, smart savings and environmental restoration. Call it the green-collar economy.As blue-collar jobs are shipped overseas and white-collar strategies careen from bubble to bailout, we have a chance to accelerate an historic economic transition. We can replace the present mess with a new economy, one that honors the Earth while delivering work, wealth and health to everyday people.The truth is we canÂ’t base a national...

By now Ron Bloom’s professional road to becoming the Obama administration’s car czar has been widely reported. Missing from the coverage, however, has been any mention of those formative years at Jewish summer camp. Born in New York City and raised in Swarthmore, a suburb of Philadelphia, much of Bloom’s early life revolved around Habonim (now known as Habonim Dror), a progressive Labor Zionist youth movement that emphasizes cultural Judaism, socialism and social justice. It’s all part of an upbringing that the man overseeing the country’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry cites among his earliest influences... ...At age 10,...

My home state of California usually interacts with the federal government by genuflecting. But, on a few issues - very few, that is - they’ve got plenty of backbone. Most notably, marijuana. Last week, the California State Senate passed Senate Joint Resolution 14 (SJR14), calling on the federal government to end their “interference in state medical marijuana laws.” If passed by the Assembly, it will be sent on to Congress and the White House as an official position of the California legislature. THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE CLAUSE Under the Constitution of the United States, the federal government is authorized to exercise...