Free Republic

Listen Live: Sound Off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9 a.m. to noon ET (Daily Thread)Sound Off Connecticut is a popular conservative/libertarian call in talk show hosted by Jim Vicevich weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon ET. Although based in Connecticut, the show welcomes callers from all over the United States! This is your chance to sound off America! Call into the show toll free (800) 966-9842! Listen to the LIVE AUDIO STREAM at http://wtic.com - it's free and NO registration is required! If you're in southern New England listen over the air to WTIC 1080 AM, the 50,000 watt...

The sweeping sense of opulence, majesty this 4,000 square foot penthouse,one of many numerous residences Madoff had once called home, is all the more breath-taking when you realize the sort of wrenching dichotomy Madoff will be made to endure within the agonizingly bare, spartan surroundings of the last place he'l ever get to call home. It's vitally important to bear in mind that it was not capitalism. the free enterprise system that was impugned , only that of sinister, contemptuous excuse of a human being.

In a nationally televised event, President Obama plans to speak before a joint session of Congress Wednesday evening. Here is what I have read about the reason for the speech: "The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Obama’s planned address to a joint session of Congress this week “will insert the president into the heated debate in a way he has avoided all summer.” The Washington Post informed readers that the “White House is scrambling to take control of the health-care debate after watching from the sidelines.”

A pattern has emerged in Obama’s policy initiatives. It’s not the change in ideas or methods promised and it isn’t new. It is pure demagoguery. A demagogue, is defined as, “A political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.” Aristophanes (446-386 B.C.), a comic playwright, used it in a satire about a political leader, but there is nothing funny or satirical about what Obama is doing.-snip- His actual views require specifics and Obama is consistently short on them. As Jack Shafer notes, “Given that many of his speeches are criminally...

Here is video of far-left Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas on The Ed Schultz Show saying the "Public Option" is the "Waterloo" for them. Ed Schultz seems totally put out with Obama, as does Markos Moulitsas. Kos admits that what they really want is a "Single-Payer system" - which is code for a Total Government take over of Health Care. So, he says, they have "already compromised," and at least a "Public Option" is a must for them. . . . . (VIDEO)

Focus on the Dream Today's Scripture "If God is for us, who can ever be against us? " (Romans 8:31, NLT) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria What are you focusing on today? Are you focusing on your difficult situation, or on God's promises? You may have all kinds of problems coming at you. Maybe you're feeling discouraged as new problems and challenges have popped up in your life. Don't let it get you down. Don't let it take your focus off of God. He is working on your behalf in the supernatural, even when you can't see it....

When the media sees the popularity of their Messiah sinking like a rock … well it can’t be his policies are bad, or a lack of leadership on his key issues, an inability to effectively communicate with Americans … no … it must be because we are racists. Just ask Chuck Todd and Mike Barnicle. Unbelievable.

Do It Yourself (2) ". . . bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . ." —2 Corinthians 10:5 Determinedly Discipline Other Things. This is another difficult aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul said, according to the Moffatt translation of this verse, ". . . I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ . . . ." So much Christian work today has never been disciplined, but has simply come into being by impulse! In our Lord’s life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was never...

WOMEN should be able to serve in all frontline combat units of the Australian Defence Force, including the SAS and commando units, under a controversial plan that could avert a looming recruitment crisis. The push by Defence Personnel and Science Minister Greg Combet would remove gender as a criterion for selection for specialised categories of military service. The Rudd government wants to lift the proportion of women serving in the defence force from the current level of 13 per cent, as demographic pressures bear down on defence force recruitment over the next decade. Removing any gender discrimination for serving in...

From Fox: Though the United States has by far the highest level of health care spending per capita in the world, we have one of the lowest life expectancies among developed nations Everybody else skews their data. It's not a reflection on our system. Here: "Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby" Instead, doctors told her to treat the labour as a miscarriage, not a birth, and to expect her baby to be born with serious deformities or even to be still-born. The doctor didn't just come up with that out of thin air,...

In a classic feat of showmanship, a Frederick County commissioner brought attention to local budget problems by declaring that the county should secede and become its own state. Commissioner John L. Thompson Jr. persuaded his fellow board members Tuesday to ask the county's financial staff for a study of how much of residents' state taxes are returned, but the board fell short of passing a secession resolution.

In December 1921, the American industrialist Henry Ford and the inventor Thomas Edison visited the Muscle Shoals nitrate and water power projects near Florence, Alabama. They used the opportunity to articulate at length upon their alternative money theories, which were published in 2 reports which appeared in The New York Times on December 4, 1921 and December 6, 1921. Objecting to the fact that the Government planned, as usual, to raise the money by issuing bonds which would be bought by the banking and non-banking sector -- which would then have to be paid back with money raised from taxes,...

This Donald Duck cartoon won the Academy Award, as best animated short subject of 1943. Link to video: HERE LYRICS: Note: Each "heil heil" is accompanied by what is variously called "the bird", "the raspberry", or "the Bronx cheer" CHORUS When der fuehrer says we is de master race We heil, heil, right in der fueher's face Not to love der fuehrer is a great disgrace So we heil heil right in der fuehrer's face When Herr Goebbels says we own the world and space We heil, heil, right in Herr Goebbels' face When Herr Goring says they'll never bomb...

SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States moved on Tuesday to freeze the assets of two North Korean entities believed to be involved in atomic and missile programmes, raising pressure on Pyongyang to resume disarmament talks. Pyongyang has been sending out conflicting messages. In August, it made a series of conciliatory gestures, followed this month by more nuclear threats and then straining ties with Seoul by releasing water from a dam on a river flowing across the border, triggering a flash flood that killed six South Koreans. WHAT ARE NORTH KOREA'S LEADERS UP TO? Destitute North Korea wants cash and an...

Prior to his nationally broadcast speech to students on Tuesday, President Barack Obama made a pitch for health care reform in a discussion with 40 freshmen at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. Although the president avoided controversial topics in his speech, he did promote health care reform in a face-to-face discussion at Wakefield High School. Asked by a student how he stays motivated to do his job, Obama replied that his staff gives him 10 letters every day from “ordinary folks.” “Some of the stories are really depressing,” Obama told the 40 freshman, who were chosen to meet with...

Ethics spotlight burns on House DemsBy Susan Crabtree - 09/09/09 06:05 AM ET The ethics spotlight on House Democrats is intensifying amid predictions from political analysts that Republicans will pick up many seats in next year’s midterm elections. Few are going so far as to say that the GOP will win back the House, but ethics controversies are key to the rise of the minority party in the lower chamber. Republicans capitalized on Democratic ethics woes to win the House in 1994 and Democrats turned the tables on the GOP in 2006, catapulting Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Speaker. Republicans...

Honduras' de facto government remains dead-set against the return of Manuel Zelaya as the country's president, defying the Obama administration and disregarding the U.S. sanctions imposed last week against the poor Central American nation. In fact, the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti appears to be digging in its heels against Zelaya by circulating accusations the ousted president illegally used public money to keep horses, buy watches and jewelry and repair his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez Contreras said his government continues to reject calls that it grant amnesty to Zelaya and allow him to return as president, as...

The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue. The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is "highly unlikely" to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company's stock to reach unprecedented heights. "Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount," according to the report, which...

It's a nondescript stretch of Interstate 85, heading south through the pine forests from Petersburg, across Virginia's lower tier of rural counties. I'm not sure why the overpass crossing the interstate caught my eye. Maybe it was that the dozen or so vehicles up there so clearly outnumbered the few down where I was on the much more spacious highway. That's when I noticed, as we swished under the overpass, the name of the highway: "Poor House Road." It was a busy place. And then it was only a few hundred yards to the next and much more poignant reminder....

A lesbian soldier who deserted the U.S. military appealed to a Canadian judge for asylum Tuesday, claiming she was repeatedly harassed and threatened with death, then denied a discharge because her superiors wanted to send her to Afghanistan. Pte. Bethany Smith, who adopted the name Skyler James upon fleeing to Canada two years ago, took her case to Federal Court after being rejected as a refugee by the Immigration and Refugee Board. Smith's lawyer, Jamie Liew, said she knows of no lesbian or gay American soldier who has been granted refugee status in Canada or elsewhere based on sexual orientation....