Free Republic

  President Barack Obama plans to give a strong endorsement of a public option – or government health-insurance plan – in his remarks to Congress on Wednesday night but will stop short of an ultimatum, leaving wiggle room for negotiation as the bill moves through Congress, according to sources familiar with his remarks.In a speech meant to reset debate on the centerpiece of his first-term agenda, Obama can be expected to use language similar to his Labor Day remarks in Cincinnati, where he said: “I continue to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help...

President Obama has promised to reveal some details of ObamaCare II today. It will be different in some respects from ObamaCare I, which more Americans now oppose than support. Which is cool, and I enjoyed this cartoon. In the meantime, I have a few modest suggestions. None were a part of ObamaCare I, and I am willing to bet that none will be included in the new draft. My wife and I have lived in Panamá for about seven years. Health care is good and inexpensive; it is not perfect, and problems exist due to the topography and population distribution...

Last month, an MSNBC anchor claimed socialist was the new N-word. On Tuesday, a contributing editor of the liberal website Daily Kos took this insanity a step further by creating and posting a picture depicting Tea Partiers as racists and Fox News's Glenn Beck as their leader. Why are Beck and so many Americans deserving of this dishonor? Because they are "fond of calling the Obama Administration a haven for 'socialist' and 'communist' radicals" (truly offensive picture below the fold with its truly offensive caption):

One of the (many) irritating things about being a Republican in the liberal Bay Area is the certainty that if there is a story out there that makes conservatives look stupid - like the protests against President Obama's Tuesday speech to America's students - then you know that wherever you go, folks are going to ask you about that particular flap. What do you think about Obama's speech to students? Or what about those nutty town hallers? Or what about those nasty people who claim Obama wasn't born in Hawaii? I'm supposed to be grateful for the opportunity to prove...

America and its allies in the past 20 years have assumed that the best way to stabilize the developing world is to export democracy. As a result, the ballot box has become a stand-in for substantive political reforms, resulting in chronic instability or – worse yet – elected autocracies.By Gerard DeGroot Anastasio Somoza, the notorious Nicaraguan dictator deposed in 1979, was no great believer in democracy. "I would like nothing better than to give Nicaraguans the same kind of freedom as that of the United States," he once remarked. "But, it is like what you do with a baby. First...

Here is video of a snarky Robert Gibbs this morning on Fox & Friends jabbing Fox Broadcast Network for not planning to broadcast Obama's speech tonight to a Joint Session of Congress. Of course, Gibbs was on the FOX NEWS CHANNEL - which WILL carry the President's speech - even as he took shots at Fox for not doing so. It is clear how much the Obama White House detests Fox News. They have this kind of attitude toward anyone who dares to disagree with Obama, or who are trying to shine the light of truth on what he is...

Misleading “Catholic” organizations such as Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good operated as an arm for pro-abortion Democrats in 2008 and now enjoy an important role in the Obama administration. By Anne HendershottSelf-described “progressive” Catholic organizations, such as Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Catholics United, Catholic Democrats, and Voice of the Faithful, have successfully manipulated long-standing divisions among Catholics. In 2008, President Obama, with the help of misleading propaganda from these groups, won a majority of the Catholic vote.Now these organizations are playing an important role in his administration. Witness the appointment of Alexia...

Germany's latest AIDS-awareness commercial evokes some strong emotions: shock, disgust, nausea. And that's exactly the point. The controversial ad, which was released online on Sept. 3 and starts running on German TV on Wednesday, Sept. 9, shows a couple having steamy sex in a dimly lit room with menacing music playing in the background. The viewer sees only the back of the man's head until the very end, when the camera pans to his face — to reveal that he's Adolf Hitler. Then the slogan flashes across the screen: "AIDS is a mass murderer."

Public disapproval of President Obama's handling of health care has jumped to 52 percent, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released hours before he makes his case for overhaul in a prime-time address to Congress. With his health revamp moving slowly and unemployment edging ever higher, Obama's overall approval rating has also suffered a blow. The survey showed that 49 percent now disapprove of how he is handling his job as president, up from 42 percent who disapproved in July. The grade people give Obama on health care also has worsened since July, when just 43 percent disapproved of his...

"Names were filled out on the registration forms that were not actual voters," said Ed Griffith, a spokesperson for the state attorney's office. Griffith said the names included people who were already registered voters, fictitious names, and the name of the late actor Paul Newman, who died in Sept. 2008. Griffith said the workers being sought were hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. He said ACORN alerted the state attorney's office after it reviewed hundreds of voter registration cards it suspected were fraudulent. Griffith said that none of the names in...

And then there was one. A few months ago, mainstream journalism somehow managed to report the story that the last high-profile human rights activist in Chechnya, Natalia Estemirova, had been assassinated by the Kremlin’s puppet regime in the breakaway region. But little does the world know — because of the MSM’s characteristic negligence — about the Putin regime having not one but two separate campaigns of political murder underway. One is aimed at human rights activists who seek to reveal the barbaric crimes being committed against the civilian population by Russia’s forces in Chechnya, and the other targets those who...

For fallen White House aides, the rallying cry apparently is John Podesta to the rescue! The Obama administration’s former green jobs czar Van Jones is headed back to Podesta’s Center for American Progress after stepping down from his White House post four days ago amid controversy over his leftist affiliations, the Daily News has learned. Dubbed a radical environmentalist by his right-wing critics, Jones was linked to a group that had insisted the Bush administration was aware the 9/11 attacks had been planned, but did nothing to stop the terrorist plot. His supporters counter that Jones is one of the...

The Chicago Sun-Times said that a group of local investors had made a bid to buy the ailing newspaper, which filed for bankruptcy protection in March. The Sun-Times said an investor group called STMG Holdings LLC had offered to buy the Sun-Times Media Group, which includes the flagship newspaper and its sister publications, in a deal worth about 25 million dollars. It said the deal, which would be subject to approval by a bankruptcy court judge, would include up to five million dollars in cash while the investors would take on about 20 million dollars in liabilities. It said the...

Agnostic attorney Clarence Darrow once said, "I don‘t believe in God, because I don’t believe in Mother Goose." Now those controversial words and others are being used in part of a new push to promote the thinking of atheists and agnostics. Dozens of new ads will target the people of San Francisco. The campaign is the brainchild of the Midwest-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, which represents some 14,000 nonbelievers across the country. The association has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate. The ads are already popping up on city buses. The group ordered 75 exterior signs...

Joy Brighton, MBA, Shariah Islamic Banking specialist, and ACT! for America Fellow, exposes the link between banks who offer Shariah Finance and Radical Islam, Iran, Sept 11th, oppression of Muslim women , global human rights abuses and the funding of Jihad. Is the withholding of this information to American bank customers and shareholders Security and Consumer Fraud?

When Peter Means returned to graduate school after a career as a civil servant, he turned to a debit card to help him spend his money more carefully. So he was stunned when his bank charged him seven $34 fees to cover seven purchases when there was not enough cash in his account, notifying him only afterward. He paid $4.14 for a coffee at Starbucks — and a $34 fee. He got the $6.50 student discount at the movie theater — but no discount on the $34 fee. He paid $6.76 at Lowe’s for screws — and yet another $34...

As Obama prepares to address the nation Wednesday on his health care plan, American Life League challenged the nation's Catholic bishops to be prepared to shut down Catholic health care and make it clear that they prefer this action to compromising with the intrinsic evils currently contained in various Obamacare proposals. "Obama speaks tonight. Christ speaks always. When it comes to health care reform which road will our Catholic bishops take?" the group asked in a Washington Times ad. The ad highlighted six principled positions Catholic-supported health care must include: opposition to abortion, contraception, sterilization, human embryonic stem cell therapy,...

From arch-dissenter Father (he doesn't like using the title) Richard McBrien in arch-liberal publication National Catholic (they shouldn't get to use the title) Reporter: "Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward." (source)Yes, I'm sure Jesus doesn't want us worshipping His substantial presence (sarcasm). Seriously, remind me why the Catholic News Service Twitter (the official news agency of the US Catholic Bishops) continually publicizes National Catholic Reporter articles?! Here's my quote of the day: "Supporting NCR, perpetually or not, is a doctrinal, theological and spiritual step backward, not forward." Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration...

Here we go again. Another day, another speech on health care. Will this one be any different? By all indications the answer is no, at least not dramatically so-- even though the speech is to a Joint Session of Congress. So how's a reporter supposed to write something new when there's really nothing new being said? Well, watch how the media walks its walk on health care coverage in the next couple of days. Many reporters seem just about bored to tears with the policy details. Now they are in full-throated "who's up" and "who's down" political coverage. Unfortunately, most...

THE community of Lower Gweru and its surroundings in the Midlands Province was left shell-shocked when a goat gave birth to human-like creature that had the combined features of a man and a goat. A report in The Chronicle newspaper said the goat gave birth to the 'creature' on Sunday morning in Maboleni area. The creature had a human head, face, nose, shoulders and human-like skin that had very scanty furs. It had goat features from the “shoulders” to the legs. Its sagging stomach prevented curious villagers from determining whether it had human or animal sex organs as it protruded...