Free Republic

I have posted 25 essential conservative pages and groups at PDOP for my readers to more easily locate without searching. Free Republic's Fan Group is on the list but here is there link in case you don't journey over. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2596056706 Also, follow Free Rep on twitter: http://twitter.com/jimrobfr

"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. "

Graft, Red Tape Dent Russia’s Ratings 09 September 2009 By Maria Antonova Despite regulatory reforms, Russia got poor marks in terms of competitiveness and the ease of doing business, with corruption considered the biggest problem, according to two global reports released Tuesday. Russia ranks 120th in the World Bank’s annual “Doing Business” report, which evaluates laws and regulations that affect business activity in 183 countries. Russia improved on three of the survey’s 10 indicators by easing the process of registering property, lowering the corporate income tax rate from 24 percent to 20 percent, and defining bankruptcy rules more clearly. But...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on tonight’s speech by President Obama on health care reform: Will President Obama mention abortion tonight? Not a chance. Abortion is perhaps the most divisive moral issue in America, and because the president wants to force the taxpayers to pay for abortion (it would be covered in the public plan), he is not going to go near it. The manly thing to do would be to address it head-on. No segment of American society has been more supportive of universal health care than the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Moreover, this isn’t something...

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday. Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment. Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support. She said he was breathing unaided, had...

From the BNO Newsroom. PHOENIX (BNO NEWS) -- A mid-air collision happened in the Phoenix area on Wednesday, a spokesman for the FAA told BNO News. According to KPHO-TV, at least one small plane came down in Coolidge, which is near Phoenix. Further details are not yet available. Refresh this page for updates.

Secretary of State Elaine Marshall filed paperwork Tuesday to create a campaign committee to run for the U.S. Senate next year. "We’ll have a more formal announcement in the future," said Thomas Mills, a consultant for Marshall. "We were feeling we just needed to get started in moving forward." Marshall joins Kenneth Lewis, a Durham lawyer and the only other announced Democratic candidate, in the field to take on U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican. Other Democrats eyeing the race include former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham and U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge. Marshall, a former state...

"Glenn Beck 1990" is an exercise in the politics of retribution - a spoof of Glenn Beck's outrageous assertions and obfuscations - an Internet meme engineered by those seeking justice - a theater of the absurd. "Glenn Beck 1990" is short for "Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990", a web site dedicated to tracking the meme questioning Glenn Beck's guilt in 1990. Glenn Beck is not pleased, and is taking legal action against the website tracking the meme. tech dirt reports: It turns out that Glenn Beck isn't happy about this either. He's filed a domain name...

AFP’s Patients First Bus Tour is rolling into your area! The tour has already visited North Carolina, and you would not BELIEVE the energy and excitement at these rallies! Hundreds of people have come out to show their support for free-market health care solutions, morning, noon and night, and local news media have been all over it. Now it’s our turn – let’s keep the momentum going! We are coming back to Virginia to Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and Yorktown on our Patients First bus tour Thursday, September 10. At each stop, we will have a press conference/rally before rolling onto...

As if NewsReal hasn't stumbled into enough debates already, now we have John Nolte, Editor-In-Chief of the essential conservative pop culture blog Big Hollywood challenging us. On September 1 Chris Yogerst (who also writes for Big Hollywood and Parcbench in addition to NewsReal) wrote a post here jumping into the debate about "Inglourious Basterds" and why Hollywood often employs politically correct villains: With the politics surrounding Hollywood, one thing people have to understand is that not every filmmaker thinks he or she is a politician. They don’t all want to make political statements with their films. Quentin Tarantino is one...

Your tax dollars at work... funding this America-hating gasbag on PBS. Bill Moyers goes on a tirade against Republicans and angry town hall protesters for not allowing Obama to nationalize health care.

Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards -- including registering the name of the late actor Paul Newman -- the Florida state attorney's office told FOXNews.com. The FBI and state authorities took six people into custody Wednesday as it issued 11 arrest warrants for voter registration fraud in Homestead, Fla., in June 2008. "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,...

Two new polls show Gov. Beverly Perdue's approval ratings continue to suffer. Poll results released Wednesday by left-leaning Public Policy Polling show Perdue's job approval rating at 26 percent, with 54 percent of voters indicating disapproval of her performence. In a blog post, pollster Tom Jensen suggests the governor's numbers are now so low, she might as well shoot for the moon. "For Perdue, her weak numbers provide a great opportunity," Jensen write. "It's close to impossible for her to be any less popular so she should move forward with a more bold and transformational vision for the state and...

Print out one of these handy banners and tape to the bottom of your TV screen....You know those annoying news banners at the bottom of the television screen on news channels? Well, here's your chance to make your own and have some fun if you plan to watch Obama's big speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Copy one or more of these into your word processor and print them out on a sheet of paper with a font large enough to be seen from across the room. Then tape to the bottom of the screen as Obama...

If Republicans thought their headaches in the Kentucky Senate race were over when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) announced his retirement, they were wrong. Rand Paul, the son of former presidential candidate and Texas GOP Rep. Ron Paul, has crashed the party for Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who is widely regarded as the establishment pick to succeed the 77-year-old Bunning. While Paul, an ophthalmologist, is a long shot, his presence in the contest all but guarantees that Grayson will be embroiled in an expensive and potentially damaging primary contest. It’s not the scenario the GOP was hoping for. Party...

Move over Van Jones. There's a new enemy in town. His name is Mark Lloyd, and conservative critics are mad as hell that he's working in the Obama administration. "Fresh off the ousting of former special assistant for 'green jobs' Van Jones, Glenn Beck supporters are calling for the public lynching of FCC Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd," writes Examiner columnist Clifford Bryan. Beck put out the call on his Twitter page with this ominous posting: "Watch Dogs: FIND EVERYTHING YOU CAN ON CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD AND CAROL BROWNER. Do not link before burning to disc." Beck complains that Lloyd...

In the next 16 days, Congress will spend more than $3 trillion in taxpayer money. To cover these programs, some Americans will be working up to three hours of each day. Vast amounts of that money will be spent in the form of earmarks, specially designated pet projects that members of Congress use to bring federal funds back to their home states. Since 44 congressmen make no earmarks at all, that means the rest are doing more than their share. For example, in the House, just 4 percent of members took home 32 percent of all the bacon -- and...

Back in 1933, at a time of economic crisis, President Roosevelt forced U.S. Citizens to sell their gold at $20 an ounce - and then subsequently revalued the metal to $35. Could President Obama, a Roosevelt disciple, have similar plans in mind. But, history does tell us that the US government, in the days of a fixed gold price, did intervene in a very direct manner with President F.D. Roosevelt banning the "hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates" and thus forcing US citizens to sell to Federal Reserve at $20 an ounce. Subsequently the Fed raised the...

In the latest round of Capitol brinksmanship, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill honoring Vietnam veterans and threatened to kill 72 other proposals on his desk because he said lawmakers have ignored his priority issues. The Senate withdrew all of its 43 bills from the Republican governor's desk for temporary safekeeping. But in an act of defiance, the Assembly left on his desk a bill that would designate March 30 as "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day." "I dare the governor to veto this bill," said Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, before the close of Tuesday's session. Shortly afterward, Schwarzenegger...

Abercrombie and Fitch has been fined $115,264 for discrimination, four years after employees at the Mall of America store refused to allow a family member to accompany an autistic girl into a fitting room. Judge Kathleen Sheehy, an administrative law judge, found that the retailer had discriminated against the 14-year-old girl, in violation of state statutes. Sheehy ordered the fine this month, after the retailer repeatedly refused to respond to the daughter's mother's request for an apology and denied engaging in discriminatory practices. The retailer has appealed, charging that the fine is excessive. The judge found that the girl, whose...