Free Republic

Sophisticated computer scans of fossils have helped solve a mystery over the nature of a giant, ancient raptor known as the Haast's eagle which became extinct about 500 years ago, researchers said Friday. The researchers say they have determined that the eagle — which lived in the mountains of New Zealand and weighed about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) — was a predator and not a mere scavenger as many thought. Much larger than modern eagles, Haast's eagle would have swooped to prey on flightless birds — and possibly even the rare unlucky human.

Reaction to the shooting death of a 63-year-old disabled man who was gunned down as he held up a sign protesting abortion near a high school in Owosso, Mich., on Friday came swiftly as pro-life groups across the nation offered eulogies about an individual they said was passionate about the fate of unborn children. Known as “the sign man,” Pouillon, who had leg braces and required oxygen, was a pro-life activist for many years and well-known by other pro-life advocates around the country.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, is becoming a metaphor for almost all the sins of our age. Let us count the ways. How about corruption? Currently, Mr. Rangel is under investigation by two House subcommittees for illegally holding four rent-stabilized apartments in New York and not disclosing more than $75,000 in income from a rental villa he owns. He also took free Caribbean trips paid for by corporate cronies and used his congressional letterhead to press for money for the City College of New York's new educational center,...

Just a reminder/suggestion: If you can't make a tea party today, PLEASE try to do something to make your voice heard anyway!!! Write/email/call your congress critters/news outlets/newspaper. Leave messages on their answering machines, overload their faxes, make as much noise as you can! Donate some money to people like Wilson, if you have the cash. Even if you've already done these things do them again, today! A lot of people can't make it to an actual tea party due to finances, health, work, family and other issues. But they can still make their presence known in other ways! So get...

Muslims in the UK are calling for war from their Sharia Courts, and clearly bullying the police. Yet the UK government was silent about these actions. Now they have now spoken up in concern about the anti-Islam protests though. Obviously the current leaders of the UK just do not have the guts to fight for life as they know it.

The NAIS laws and the new agriculture regulations that are coming into effect will take control over what we eat. These regulations give total unconstitutional control to the government. This is all in the name of food safety. You and I will not even be able to grow gardens or raise a few chickens on the side. We will need to register with the government, provide a plan of what we intend to grow, set up setbacks to prevent contamination of our gardens, give the government unlimited rights to inspect our property and books, etc. It will be impossible to...

The Washington Post puts the large, emerging 9-12 protest rally at the top of the front page today, but insist on playing up the fringe elements, "right-wing nutballs" and "freaks" – something liberal journalists very rarely did when covering anti-war, anti-Bush events. They often fail to place those protesters on the left. But reporters Dan Eggen and Perry Bacon Jr identified ideology immediately. "With tens of thousands of conservative protesters expected in Washington on Saturday" are the first words. The story carries five conservative labels from the reporters. The fourth paragraph quotes "Republican" adviser Mark McKinnon – but fails to...

(CNSNews.com) – A new survey gauging Muslim attitudes indicates that backing for suicide bombings against civilians, while generally down from earlier years, remains significant in some Islamic countries – challenging the assertion that Muslims supporting terrorism constitute a “tiny minority.” In the Pew Global Attitudes Project poll released on Thursday, 68 percent of Palestinian Muslim respondents said suicide bombings against civilians were justifiable “to defend Islam from its enemies.” That view was shared by 43 percent of respondents in Nigeria and 38 percent in Lebanon, where 51 percent of Shi’ites held the view compared to 25 percent of Sunnis. Elsewhere,...

The Denver Constitution Teaparty is today! I've been busy working out logistics, but we are ready to rock tonight. I was just surfing the web and found a few notes about the DC teaparty. Instapundit has a traffic cam pic from the streets of Washington... Really curious to see how many attend our Denver Teaparty tonight... Should be fun. Jenny Hatch PS No media to link to about our event because frankly, there has not been any pre event coverage from Television or Print news. I sent out press releases the past two months and the only people interested were...

President Obama on health bill: 'I own it' President Obama tells Steve Kroft in an interview airing Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on CBS News' "60 Minutes: "I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it. ... So I have every incentive to get this right.” The interview was taped Friday night at the White House, as part of an administration media blitz following his address to a joint session of Congress. In an excerpt released by "60 Minutes," Obama said: “I have no interest in having a bill get passed that fails....

Here is a local news report out of Baltimore saying Maryland officials are considering prosecution of the young undercover filmmakers for taping the ACORN workers at the Baltimore office. They say it violates Maryland State Law to "surreptitiously" tape someone without their consent. They are comparing it to the Linda Tripp taping of conversations about Monica Lewinsky's activities with President Bill Clinton. An ACORN official also says she doubts the "authenticity of the videos," even though they took steps to fire the Workers in the video. She claims with "technology" available today, the video could have been "dubbed." You can...

LONDON (AP) - Violent clashes between anti-Islam demonstrators and Muslim counter-protesters in English cities are worrying the government, with one British minister comparing the disturbances to 1930s-era fascist incitement. The violence that has hit Luton, Birmingham and London in the last few months has involved a loose collection of far-right groups—such as the previously unknown English Defense League—on one side and anti-fascist organizations and Muslim youth on the other.

Congratulations. You're about to own $100 billion a year in student loans.The furor over President Obama's trillion-dollar restructuring of American health care has left his other trillion-dollar plan starved for attention. That's how much the federal balance sheet will expand over the next decade if Mr. Obama can convince Congress to approve his pending takeover of the student-loan market. The Obama plan calls for the U.S. Department of Education to move from its current 20% share of the student-loan origination market to 80% on July 1, 2010, when private lenders will be barred from making government-guaranteed loans. The remaining 20%...

Derek Jeter galloped ahead of the Iron Horse last night, passing Yankees legend Lou Gehrig for the team's all-time hits record and giving Bombers fans around the Big Apple a major league thrill. "Awesome!" said Kathy Leogrande, 63, of Long Island, who was among the 46,771 excited fans who watched the record fall. "This is the best thing that has happened to this city in a long time."

A commentator at Canada Free Press says he has obtained copies of two documents apparently prepared by Democrats to certify Barack Obama as their nominee for president in 2008 that suggest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew there was an unresolved issue with his eligibility under the U.S. Constitution. Writer JB Williams describes himself as a "no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy." And he say's he's gotten possession of copies of the documents in question.

At this point in the game it might be a little premature to engage in a few what-ifs in the event a health care reform bill ("ObamaCare")containing a public option is rammed through the Congress in some fashion. My guess at this point is that two differing bills -- the House's version having a public option and the Senate's not -- will have to be reconciled in conference committee, which will be Nancy Pelosi's, Harry Reid's and Barack Obama's best chance to insert a stealth version of it back into a final version. Should that occur, and I don't see...

Congressman Heller sent this letter to President Obama on September 8, 2009 offering options to help bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats on health care reform: September 8, 2009 The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C., 20006 Dear Mr. President: Yesterday, you said those critical of your healthcare plan were "trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo." You rhetorically asked critics "what's your answer? What's your solution?" and asserted that "the truth is, they don't have one. It's do nothing." (Speech before the AFL-CIO, Cincinnati,...

NEW YORK (AP) ― Calling him "a cunning individual with dangerous proclivities," a judge on Thursday refused to grant bail to an Indian reservation smoke shop proprietor who made a fortune supplying untaxed cigarettes to the black market. U.S. District Judge Denis R. Hurley said in his ruling that he believed Rodney Morrison, one of the state's biggest dealers in tax-free tobacco, was a liar and a killer, despite his acquittal on murder charges in a federal racketeering case last year. Verdict notwithstanding, Hurley said, the evidence showed that Morrison had protected his cigarette business on Long Island's Poospatuck Indian...

"Sorry, Joe, but you've got to go. America won't tolerate your potshots. We all know that we might disagree with each other from time to time. And most of us learned that there's a right way and a wrong way to handle disagreements. But not Congressman Joe "Heckler" Wilson. America deserves better than a Member of Congress who takes cheap potshots at our Commander-in-Chief. Sorry, Joe. You've got to go. It's time to send Joe "Heckler" Wilson packing. You can help make it happen."

A new paper from the New America Foundation urges that US to adopt a policy of moderate inflation in order to allevieate the massive public and private debt burden. Authored by Chris Hayes, the Washington DC editor of the Nation, the paper argues that too much debt will have a deadening effect on the economy, as people are consigned to “debtor serfdom” and the government cannot afford to provide basic services because of the cost of making its debt payments. “The surest way to avoid such a fate is to jettison a central, indeed the central axiom of post-1970s neoliberal global...