Free Republic

I gotta admit this is pretty impressive.

The Obama administration took an overhaul of the country’s immigration laws off its legislative agenda this year, but the prickly issue of public benefits for illegal immigrants has resurfaced in the health care debate. During the summer recess, members of Congress faced persistent questions from constituents worried that health care changes could leave taxpayers footing medical bills for illegal immigrants. President Obama has not been able to extinguish the doubts despite giving repeated assurances that illegal immigrants would be excluded from any subsidized benefits under proposals before Congress. ... Republicans argue that some of the voters’ concerns are justified because,...

Update on a few ongoing reality TV shows. Hell's Kitchen keeps on cussing and smoking. A new reality cooking show, Bravo's "Top Chef Vegas" premieres. Lifetime's "Project Runway" has maternity wear and beach attire and narrowing down to a grand finale, "America's Got Talent" going down to a top 10 although Obamer will pre-empt it this coming week. All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

I just watched David Axelrod, the top ranking political advisor in the White House, and Robert Gibbs, the President's spokesman on "Meet the Press" and "This Week" respectively. Neither of them was willing, even after repeated questioning, to offer a single negative word about Van Jones. Not one word. A 9/11 Truther and defender of Mumia-Abu Jamal is not radical enough for this White House to distance itself from the man in any way. Again and again, this White House has been offered chances to condemn the man's views and they have willfully and quite deliberately refused. Compare this to...

A New Haven man is under arrest after police found pipe bombs and a weapon in his vehicle late Saturday,  Marlon Reddick, 44 was stopped by West Haven Police last night around 11:00 p.m. in the area of Elm Street and Kimberly Avenue for equipment violations. During the motor vehicle stop, officers observed a clear plastic bag containing pills in the passenger compartment of the vehicle. After Reddick claimed no knowledge of the pills, the officers asked him to exit the vehicle as they continued their investigation, according to a police report. As officers searched the vehicle, they discovered a duffle bag behind the front seat. ...

Walter Reed - Weeks 228 and 229, August 28 and September 4, 2009; Friday Evening 9/11 – Next Week, Join Us FRONT GATE NOTES Next Friday, 9/11, Please Join Us Two weeks of great weather have set the stage for a great rally this Friday, 9/11. Many patriotic groups are gathering this week in Washington to protest growing taxes and increasingly intrusive government programs. These groups encourage fiscal responsibility and limited government. Elected representatives who are out of touch with their constituents will find it hard to ignore the tens of thousands constituents on Washington DC streets. They won’t be...

Connecting The Dots A faculty member of the UH-West Oahu Center for Labor Education and Research (CLEAR), Conybeare is a producer of the many-part PBS “Rice and Roses” series on the history of labor organizing in Hawaii, focusing on the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). Conybeare’s “Biography Hawaii” videos include the story of ILWU Hawaii President, Jack Hall and the life of Koji Ariyoshi, founder and editor of the ILWU-funded Honolulu Record. According to Conybeare’s videos, before hiring Frank Marshall Davis, Koji Ariyoshi joined the WW2-era Military Intelligence Service/OSS—predecessor to the CIA—and used his language skills to land himself...

NAMPA, Idaho (AP) - About a block from a street concert in downtown Nampa, Melissa Sue Robinson strolls with purpose into a trendy coffee shop - the unofficial liberal embassy of this sprawling Republican stronghold in southwest Idaho. Dressed in a cream-colored pantsuit, a political flier clutched in one hand, a soft brown leather purse in the other, she orders a mocha and takes a seat as a group of teenagers stare at her from near the door. The 58-year-old was born male and still carries the slightly larger-than-an-average-woman build of Charles Staelens Jr., who legally changed his name and...

Former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) waxed nostalgic about turkey hunting trips in his first post-prison release, lamenting that as a convicted felon, he can't carry a gun. Traficant called into the NewsRadio 570 WKBN "Outdoor Icon" show on Saturday morning, where he reminiscent about his turkey hunting trips with the host, Denny Malloy. "I want you to know, those were some of the best times in my life," Traficant told Malloy. "I think the hunters provide a very valuable service to our environment," he added. But Traficant said that he cannot hunt right now, though, because of restrictions on firearms...

David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer," he tells a meeting of the National Taxpayers Union, the nation's oldest anti-tax lobby. "Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!" His audience sits in rapt attention. A few years ago these antitax activists would have been polite but a tad restless listening to the...

Here is video of the Fox News Sunday Panel (begins at 1:25 mark) discussing the resignation of Obama "Green Jobs" Czar Van Jones today. The beginning of the video is a news report on Jones' resignation. Bill Kristol commented that the Mainstream Media did not cover the Jones Controversy. He gave kudos to the great blog Gateway Pundit in particular for their role in exposing Jones (2:27 mark of video). Stephen Hayes said the key question is how did Jones get hired by the White House. Juan Williams said Van Jones was simply a way to attack President Obama, and...

Bill Kristol: A guy named Jim Hoft in St. Louis, Missouri who runs a blog called Gateway Pundit did much more reporting on this than the entire mainstream media. Gateway Pundit: There were several bloggers who reported on this scandal. Glenn Beck hammered Van Jones all week. And, Breitbart TV and Naked Emperor News posted some devastating Van Jones' video clips.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated in 1882. Now every year, classes at any US university start just after Labor Day. The labor issues are interesting not only to economic department students; every student thinks about life after graduation. Hired workers are a large part of the population, and therefore, a question almost everyone asks himself from time to time is how to get job. "You should be able to sell yourself", career consultants usually say, when you go to them for advice. Then they move on to how to improve your appeal as a worker, speaking as if...

THE CALIFORNIA PUBLIC Employees Retirement System is trying to tamp down public concern after its chief actuary candidly said last month that government pension costs are "unsustainable." The portfolio value of the nation's largest public pension fund, battered by the stock market and the real estate downturn, declined about 24 percent, or roughly $58 billion, in the fiscal year that ended June 30. The system serves 1.6 million public employees, retirees and their families across the state. They need not worry. Their pensions won't be affected. Instead, state and local governments across California will have to cut services — or,...

A man who said his cat had eaten most of a €500 note has been refused a replacement by the German Bundesbank. The administrative court in Frankfurt upheld the federal bank’s refusal to replace the note, after the man failed to provide enough evidence to back up his claim. According to a report in the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift weekly legal magazine, the court said generally around half of a bank note must be available, and the claimant must be able to prove that the rest has been destroyed, to qualify for a replacement. Bundesbank workers refused to replace the man’s...

Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and Eve Ensler have joined the growing list of artists who are boycotting the Toronto film festival over a program honoring Tel Aviv's 100th anniversary, gossip blogger Perez Hilton reported on Friday. The three have added their names to a letter aimed at festival officials claiming that Tel Aviv was built on violence, ignoring the "suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants," Hilton reported. Several Israeli films are being screened at the festival's new City to City event, which this year celebrates Tel Aviv's centennial. Culture critic Naomi Klein and director John Greyson are among...

Van Jones' parting shot reveals more truths about him and his fellow so-called progressives than it does his opponents.

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change. By Thursday, Mrs. Browner's name and biography had been removed from Socialist International's Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group's congress in Greece was still available.

Dios mio! In a strange twist, police busted a Hispanic man for tossing a bottle and a piece of wood at parishioners of a Hispanic church in an area of Long Island long plagued by racial strife -- and charged him with a hate crime. Christhian Munguia Garcia was also charged with breaking into the same church in Patchogue Tuesday and leaving threatening anti-Hispanic notes, according to Suffolk County police. "Hispanics do not rule. Whites do!" the note declared in Spanish. Garcia, 25, was busted after wandering up to worshippers leaving the Iglesia Evangelica Refugio de Salvacion late Friday and...

Now that White House green jobs adviser Van Jones has stepped down, Republicans are raising concerns about the administration's reliance on "czars." -- The resignation of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones could ultimately embolden conservatives who are critical of the Obama administration for its reliance on "czars" -- the nickname for special advisers who do not need congressional approval. Jones resigned late Saturday following mounting criticism over his past statements and associations. The tipping point came when it was discovered that he signed a petition in 2004 supporting the "9/11 truther" movement, which believes the Bush administration may...