Free Republic

I hear that Rush Limbaugh is telling people that they have no choice but to drink the Republican Kool-Aid in the 2010 elections. Given the track record of the forces still in control of the Republican Party, this is tantamount to saying that we let the American republic go gently into the dark night of National Socialism.

He skis down volcanoes, strips off in Siberian rivers and even ventures to the bottom of lakes in mini-submarines. Hardly surprising then that Vladimir Putin – Russia's action-man prime minister and judo black belt – is a fan of Swiss watches. Expensive ones. Yesterday, Putin stunned workers at a factory in the town of Tula when he gave away his latest timepiece to a worker. Dressed in blue overalls, factory employee Viktor Zagaevsky approached Russia's tsar-like leader and asked him whether he might like to offer a memento. Apparently unable to think of an appropriate souvenir, Russia's premier swiftly took...

The Acorn scandal, in which amateur journalists posing as a prostitute and a pimp went seeking a mortgage for a house of prostitution and received advice on how to evade the law, is a fitting new chapter in the controversial history of the advocacy group.Acorn found its way into the mortgage business through the Community Reinvestment Act, the 1977 legislation that community groups have used as a cudgel to force lenders to lower their mortgage underwriting standards in order to make more loans in low-income communities. Often the groups, after making protests under CRA, were then rewarded by banks with...

from Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on healthcare (CNN transcript): Obama: .... Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie plain and simple. Now... Now, there are...

"They're going to put it where?"

The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our Solar System marks a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT and follow-up radial velocity measurements with HARPS suggest that this exoplanet, CoRoT-7b, has a density similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth making it only the fifth known terrestrial planet in the Universe.

Paris, France (BANG) - Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani has been ordered to suspend work on his new property. French conservationists have taken the prince to court over his plans to modernize Hotel Lambert, a 17th century property on the bank of the River Seine in Paris, insisting he would cause "irreversible damage" to the listed historic monument. However, the Prince - who paid a rumored 60 million Euros for the property two years ago - insists his proposed plans will restore the building to its former glory. His lawyer, Thierry Tomasi, said the plans were drawn up by...

JERUSALEM – It is "desirable" to redistribute America's wealth to poorer nations, argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. According to Sunstein, global climate change is primarily the fault of U.S. environmental behavior and can, therefore, be used as a mechanism to redistribute the country's wealth. The argument bears striking resemblance to comments made by Obama's former environmental adviser, Van Jones. WND reported Jones used a major environmental convention to argue for spreading America's wealth. Now WND has learned Sunstein made similar, more extensive arguments. The Obama czar penned a 2007 University of Chicago Law School paper –...

DANBURY, Conn. (AP) - Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died. The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years. Travers joined forces with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early 1960s.

The U.S. government said Wednesday it had successfully completed a test program to help deal with the toxic loans still weighing on bank balance sheets, providing a glimmer of hope on an issue that has repeatedly stymied policymakers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it received bids from 12 different consortiums interested in purchasing an ownership stake in a newly-created company that will receive a $1.3 billion residential mortgage portfolio owned by the FDIC following the failure of a Texas-based bank. Residential Credit Services, which used a 6-to-1 leverage option offered by the government, will pay $64.2 million in cash...

US Government recommends weighing laptop before and after each visit. Senior executives in US IT companies have been advised by the US Government to follow extremely strict policies for visits to China which extend far beyond standard software protection. The policies encourage them to leave their standard IT equipment at home and to buy separate gear only for use in China. Mark Bregman, chief technology officer at security firm Symantec said he left his MacBook Pro behind in the US and took his MacBook Air whenever he flew to China. Bregman said he only ever used the Air in...

RNC Chairman Michael Steele shot back at CNN’s Wolf Blitzer after the anchor tried to smear conservatives with racism on Wednesday’s Situation Room. The CNN anchor pointed out a racist sign at a Tea Party, and Steele replied, “Don’t hold up one person as an example of behavior by everyone.” [audio clips from the segment are available here]. Blitzer brought up supposed racism at Tea Parties: “You have to admit, if you take a look at some of those rallies, there were some really racist pictures out there...pictures of the President of the United States as an African witch doctor,...

WASHINGTON - No sooner than the Senate Finance Committee's chairman released his long-awaited health care bill today than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it's not good enough for Nevada. Reid is concerned about the cash-poor state's inability to boost Medicaid spending as would be required under the bill. “While this draft bill is a good starting point, it needs improvement before it will work for Nevada," Reid said in a statement. "During this time of economic crisis, our state cannot afford to shoulder the second highest increase in Medicaid funding." Reid said he received assurance from the chairman, Sen....

So now Jimmy Carter, formerly our worst president in modern times, has decided to open his flabby yap and get involved in the Obamacare government-run healthcare debate (even though THE ONE said the time for debate is over). Oh well... So Jimmy, being a white guy from the south, see, he knows a thing or two about racism. Dare say he probably is racist himself. Newsweek just reported all whites are born that way, so Jimmy, sorry to say, there's no doubt you're a big ol' racist. Jimmy was never very strong on using logic to defend a position. we...

ike all "peace activists", the former president engages in revilement against Israel, which feeds Palestinian rejectionism Israel has become a permanent stop in the travels of the former president of USA Jimmy Carter. It transpires that his approach to Israel is special. Two weeks ago he visited in Israel, this time in a special delegation of the Elders - the Elders of the world's tribe. As soon as he returned to the United States, he published an anti-Israel article in the Washington Post. In this article, Carter mentions the Hanun family, "who were evicted from the house when they had...

Terrorism: At a time when the public is losing heart on the war in Afghanistan, a decisive strike on Somalia's al-Qaida chief Monday reminds us that victory is possible and President Obama is an able leader on this front.Ten days ago, Obama signed an executive order authorizing U.S. special forces to hunt down and blow away Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a ruthless Kenyan-born terrorist operating out of Somalia. In 1998, Nabhan had a role in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, which left 212 dead, including 12 Americans. The attack was so vicious, it put Osama bin...

A hospital patient has become so disgusted with the quality of food on his ward he has taken photographs of the meals and posted them on the internet inviting people to guess the dish. WNS So far the 47-year-old's followers have failed to correctly identify half of the meals featured on the Hospital Food Bingo board he has put on his blog website. Along with the pictures, the patient, who identifies himself only at 'Traction Man' provides a daily review of the dishes he is served. His blog, headed 'Notes from a Hospital bed', begins: "You lie here all day...

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (AHN) - Gunmen attacked a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Tuesday killing 10 people, including therapists. Authorities do not know the motive of the 10:15 p.m. attack on the Life Annex treatment center that killed two therapists and eight patients as well as wounding two more, according to Enrique Torres, a spokesman of the government security forces. Witnesses said the attackers were eight armed men, who fled after the massacre. The attack was the second directed against a drug rehabilitation clinic in two weeks. The previous attack saw 18 people executed at the...

She finally decided to crawl out of the bunker and hit some cable shows this afternoon. Not surprisingly, Blitzer’s segment is the more informative of the two: Watch her thank O’Keefe and Giles for helping weed out the very few bad apples in the ACORN system before (a) threatening to sue them, (b) accusing them of doctoring the vids, and (c) alleging that they were turned away from “dozens” of offices.