Free Republic

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine: Checking the Facts It appears President Obama got it wrong when he talked about a man who supposedly died because his insurance company canceled his coverage. The president told the story during his speech to a Joint Session of Congress last week: "One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn't reported gallstones — that he didn't even know about — they delayed his treatment, and he died because of it." But The Wall Street Journal reports Otto Raddatz did not die...

September 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new Canadian study has shown that abortion increases the risk of future premature pregnancies and low birth-weight babies; however, the author has refused to say that abortion should be avoided, instead calling for improved abortion techniques. Published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the Canadian researchers found that women who had undergone a first or second trimester of pregnancy, when most are conducted, increased the risk of low birth-weight babies and premature babies 35 and 36 per cent respectively. Those women who had undergone more than one abortion had a 72...

SAN FRANCISCO — The Obama administration on Thursday released the first glimpse of a plan to strengthen the way the nation manages the oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes. President Barack Obama's Ocean Policy Task Force — comprised of 24 officials from the U.S. Department of Interior to the U.S. Navy — recommended creating a new National Ocean Council with power to coordinate and hold accountable myriad federal agencies in conservation and marine planning efforts. "Right now (ocean policy) is done on a piecemeal basis, one agency regulating fisheries, one shipping, one water quality, another national security and there's no...

Stamford Resort Banned Commercial. Just married meets seniors.

A grandson of Mexican immigrants and a former mayor of this town, Henry G. Cisneros has spent years trying to make the dream of homeownership come true for low-income families. Erich Schlegel for The New York Times THE DEVELOPER Henry Cisneros in his office in San Antonio with Sylvia Arce-Garcia, an executive assistant. He is the head of CityView, a developer. As the Clinton administration’s top housing official in the mid-1990s, Mr. Cisneros loosened mortgage restrictions so first-time buyers could qualify for loans they could never get before.

It is strange to see Democrats and their supporters persist in their efforts — indeed, even intensify them — to equate Obama's failing legislative initiatives, his dive in the polls, and the rise of protests against him with racism. Polls reveal that it is not just a losing tactic, but an enormously self-destructive one for Democrats. To make the argument, they would have to prove three points. And so far they have not even come close: 1) Uniquely vicious? Is the anger against Obama different from what we have seen leveled against presidents in the past? Americans not only know...

Much to the chagrin of candidates like Mr. Gioia, the still relatively little-known 10-year-old party [Working Families Party] had dispatched a small army in the weeks before the primary, selling voters on its candidates in the mayoral, City Council, public advocate and comptroller races. Organizers knocked on 227,928 doors and talked to 62,112 voters, a party official said. On Tuesday, more than 350 workers were stationed throughout the city, most working for a day rate of $100. Their efforts resulted in the party’s best electoral showing yet. In the public advocate’s race, the Working Families endorsed Bill de Blasio, a...

VIENNA – Iran experts at the U.N nuclear monitoring agency believe Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and worked on developing a missile system that can carry an atomic warhead, according to a confidential report seen by The Associated Press. The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that those officials share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities and missile technology — even if they have not made those views public. The document, titled "Possible Military Dimension of Iran's Nuclear Program," appeared to be the so-called IAEA "secret...

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Hugh Hefner's teenage girlfriends are installing stripper poles in their bedroom. Twins Kristina and Karissa Shannon, 19, do not share sleeping quarters with the 83-year-old Playboy mogul - he stays with his number-one girlfriend, 23-year-old Crystal Harris - but are still thrilled with the space they have at the Playboy Mansion. Karissa said: "Our room is pimp. We've got the round spinning bed from Chicago, a kicka*s big-screen TV and we have the perfect view of all the parties in the backyard. And we're getting a stripper pole in there, too." Crystal is equally as...

(worth posting again) U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports. An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary. FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said it is not unusual for campaigns to amend reports,...

September 17, 2009 Heckler Screaming "You Lie!" Removed From Obama Health Care Speech (Video) A protester screaming "You lie!" was removed from Obama's health care speech today. Maybe Joe Wilson started a trend... Or, maybe Obama did with his constant misrepresentations? Probably just another nazi mobster racist opposed to nationalized health care. Heckler Removed From Obama College Park Speech at College Park in Maryland today. WBAL reported: Thousands of University of Maryland College Park students mixed with the general public inside the Comcast Center today to hear President Barack Obama put in another pitch for his health care reform proposal....

The House voted Thursday to deny federal money to the community-organizing group Acorn after a video emerged in which employees of the group gave advice to two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp who said they wanted buy a house in Baltimore and start a brothel. Republicans added the prohibition to a Democratic bill on college lending by a bipartisan vote of 345-75, showing that Acorn, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, was increasingly seen by Democrats as a political liability. “Acorn has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that...

A middle path of muddling through is the real recipe for quagmire and loss of public support. BY LINDSEY GRAHAM, JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, & JOHN MCCAIN Growing numbers of Americans are starting to doubt whether we should have troops in Afghanistan and whether the war there is even winnable. We are confident that not only is it winnable, but that we have no choice. We must prevail in Afghanistan. We went to war there because the 9/11 attacks were a direct consequence of the safe haven given to al Qaeda in that country under the Taliban. We remain at war...

131st Canadian to die is killed in IED explosion outside Kandahar KANDAHAR–The ever-present perils of the Panjwaii claimed the life of another young Canadian soldier today when his armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb while returning from a mission to root out Taliban command centres and weapons caches. Pte. Jonathan Couturier, 23, a member of 2nd Battalion, Royal 22e Regiment, based in Valcartier, Que., was killed when his vehicle detonated an improvised explosive device some 25 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city. The tragedy makes Couturier the 131st Canadian soldier to die as part of the Afghan mission since it began...

<p>In 1859, Ohio Native Dan Emmett first performed “Dixie” New York City.</p>

Featured Term (selected at random):BOOK OF ZECHARIAH Prophetic writting of the Old Testament, containing, for its length, the largest number of predictions about christ. three visions concern the foundation of the Messianic kingdom. The fourth makes the promise "to raise my servant Baruch" (3-9b). The fourth through the sixth visions treat of Christ the priest and king. An address stresses the keeping of the commandments, and the motive power of the Messianic prophecies (7-8). The rest of the book is mainly two burdens: one over Syria, Phoenicia, and the Philistines; and the other over Israel. In the first is the...

On Sept. 12, a large crowd gathered in Washington to protest ... what? That was the opening sentence of the cover story in the forthcoming issue of Time magazine. The article, by one David von Drehle, is titled "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?" Gee, I wonder what Mr. von Drehle's conclusion is! The cover of this issue, incidentally, is simply a picture of Glenn Beck sticking his tongue out. (Considering what they've done to Ann Coulter and other conservatives, I guess Time could've done worse.) What an embarrassing pathetic week it has been for the mainstream Obama-worshiping...

Indiana State University students and faculty clustered around as three ISU theater majors dressed in colonial costumes and ringing bells recited the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. The event in front of the university’s Cunningham Memorial Library was part of Indiana State’s celebration of Constitution Day. Students, faculty and others followed theater majors Amanda Allen, Paige Biggs and Jordan Carpenter into the library to sign copies of the Constitution.

Camille Paglia, the lone Salon.com columnist who can count on her ramblings getting regular links from The Drudge Report, appeared on NPR’s “On Point” yesterday and made a spirited defense of the “birther” movement. The exchange came about 36 minutes in, after one caller to the show recounted his experiences at the 9/12 march on Washington. Paglia snapped back at him: First of all, I reject the idea that the “birther” campaign is motivated by racism. There may be racism among it, but there are legitimate questions about the documentation of Obama’s birth certificate. I’m sorry, I’ve been following this...

The Freemasons' square-and-compasses symbol adorns a wall in Washington, D.C.'s Masonic House of the Temple--the scene of strange rituals in Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol -