Free Republic

NORTHAMPTON — Authorities dragged the short woman with white hair out of her congressman’s Springfield office while she protested the Iraq war. She spent a month in federal prison after painting “Thou shalt not kill’’ on missile tubes of nuclear submarines in Connecticut. She has been arrested nine times for trespassing at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

LONDON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The British surrogate mother carrying Osama bin Laden's twin grandchildren says she has miscarried after being assaulted in Syria. Louise Pollard was 10 weeks pregnant by in-vitro fertilization by sperm of bin Laden's son, Omar, 29, and eggs from the younger bin Laden's wife Zaina, 54, formerly known as Jane Felix-Browne, when the beating occurred, the Daily Mail reported Monday. The London newspaper said Pollard was traveling with Zaina in Syria but was walking alone from a cafe to her apartment late at night when two assailants punched her to the ground, giving her a...

"RUSH: An amazing thing is happening in Delaware. Christine O'Donnell is three points ahead of Mike Castle. I was at a dinner party Saturday night with a lot of people. We're sitting at a circular table. It must have been 14 or 15 people. And the host went around the table to say, "One being we're in great shape and ten means the end of America, where would you put America on a scale of one to ten? Ten being finished; one being fat city." And the host gave a very famous name, somebody he respects, who thinks that we're...

Michael Barone has called attention to threats made by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius against private companies that dare to criticize Obamacare. The Obama administration, Sebelius warned, would impose a "zero tolerance" policy against dissent. Barone denounces this latest outrage as gangster government. Actually, it's worse than gangster government, much worse. Take a good look at the Obamacare logo. An eagle with wings outstretched atop a circular emblem of the regime. Where have we seen such an image before? What socialist regime, in Europe not so many decades ago, used such imagery? Hmmmm....

On August 20, I endorsed Christine O’Donnell for the Delaware Senate GOP primary race. As I said on Sean Hannity’s TV show last week in repeating that endorsement, she is certainly far from perfect (who is?). But I think nine terms are enough for duck-and-hide, cap-and-tax liberal Republican Mike Castle — and it looks like GOP primary voters in Delaware are coming to the same conclusion as the primary looms tomorrow. I repeat: Entrenched incumbency is not an argument for more entrenched incumbency. Castle’s campaign questions O’Donnell’s trustworthiness. GOP primary voters need to question Castle’s. He was just one of...

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday urged the alliance to contribute more experts to train Afghan police and soldiers. The trainers were a "key element" in allowing the Afghans to take charge of their own affairs as soon as possible, Mr. Rasmussen said in a speech he gave in Madrid. NATO had the right strategy and resources in Afghanistan, but it needed more people to train a total of 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, he stressed. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) might be able to start transferring responsibilities to the Afghans in 2011, Mr. Rasmussen said. NATO...

[Vatican] Germans must have more respect for "their" Pope, hear [obey] and try to understand him. With these words Walter Cardinal Kasper admonished his countrymen from Bishops to Theologians, from Priests to simple believers. In an interview with the German weekly Focus he noted, that abroad "many shake their heads about the manner and fashion, with which Germans handle the Pope from their own homeland." A few days before the begin of the State Visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Great Britain and his Pastoral trip to Scotland and England the German Curia Cardinal warned of an "aggressive atheism" in...

Steven Hawking of late manifested to the world just how much of an absolute reprobate he is by arrogantly proclaiming that there was absolutely no need for a Divine Creator to create the cosmos and all the intelligence found there in (Psalm 14:1-3, Romans 1:18-32). Such rhetoric is the height of idiocy and the ravings of an absolute mad man. To the reprobate evolutionary mind it is the pinnacle of folly to acknowledge a Divine Designer and Creator (Romans 1:28, 1 Cor. 2:14, James 3:16, Jude 1:7). To these pointy head secular atheists, the creation movement of today is no...

Generic Congressional Ballot: Republicans 47%, Democrats 38% Republican candidates now hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, September 12, 2010. Forty-seven percent (47%) of respondents say they would voter for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 38% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Last week, Republicans held a 12-point lead, matching their largest advantage ever in Rasmussen Reports surveying.  Still, while the margin has varied somewhat from week-to-week, Republicans have been consistently ahead in the Generic Ballot for over a year. During 2010, the GOP edge has never fallen...

Harley-Davidson Inc.'s three Wisconsin unions approved a labor contract Monday laden with steep concessions, reacting defensively after the motorcycle company threatened to move hundreds of jobs out of the state. The proposed deal freezes employees' pay, slashes hundreds of production jobs and assigns large volumes of work to part-time workers. But it also saves hundreds of other jobs, at least in the short-term.

Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration...

Vigilantes in Montelupo, Italy pelt a new speed camera with rocks. Vigilantes in the city of Montelupo, Italy pelted a speed camera with rocks just four days after it had been installed. According to the newspaper La Nazione, the automated ticketing machine on state road 67 was pelted on August 20. "These acts were accomplished repeatedly by adults who want to show their dissent from the administration's decisions," Mayor Rossana Mori told La Nazione.

Nevada voters aren’t buying Reid’s attacks on AngleBy Holly Bailey Mon Sep 13, 1:01 pm ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has spent millions on TV ads attacking GOP opponent Sharron Angle as "extreme," but Nevada voters just don't seem to be buying it. The latest Las Vegas Review-Journal/Mason Dixon poll on the Senate race finds Reid leading Angle by just 2 points, 46 percent to 44 percent, well within the poll's margin of error, and 6 percent remain undecided — numbers that have been virtually unchanged all summer. The latest poll has plenty of bad news for Reid, who...

RUSH: Okay, so The Chicago Boyz blog explaining that it's the threat to status, status anxiety that causes elitists of all ideological stripes to oppose people like Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, any number of them. Then there's a Le•gal In•sur•rec•tion blog with a poster named Bill Jacobson who's associate clinical professor of law at Cornell who goes even further. He says: "The 'nuts and sluts' defense is a common employment law tactic whenever a female employee brings a claim. It doesn't matter what the claim is, the defense -- after the usual legal mumbo jumbo -- will be...

I got a big chuckle a few weeks ago when the NYT editorialized against rationing supposed fear mongering–and then pushed rationing.  Well, the Old Gray Leftie Lady is at it again, claiming that the rationing comparative effectiveness panel established by Obamacare  is not–listen to us!–not about rationing.  Got that?  It’s not!Yes, of course, there’s a “but.”  From, “Are New Medical Treatments Always Better?” No one wants to bar patients from getting the treatment they need. But without curtailing the use of unnecessary, overly costly and even dangerous new technologies and surgical procedures, there is little hope of restraining the relentless rise...

ELEANOR HALL: Now to our story about those scientific sponges. They work like your everyday kitchen sponge and scientists say that what they're calling "molecular sponges" could hold the key to dealing with greenhouse gas pollution. A team of Australian researchers has developed crystals full of microscopic holes that can capture gases like carbon dioxide and the scientists designed them specifically to be used in facilities like power stations, as Michael Edwards reports.

<p>SINGAPORE – Oil prices jumped above $77 a barrel Monday in Asia, extending gains for a second trading day after a leak forced the closure of a Chicago-area oil pipeline and disrupted supplies to U.S. Midwest refineries.</p> <p>Benchmark crude for October delivery was up 70 cents to $77.15 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $2.20 to settle at $76.45 on Friday.</p>

YOU are invited to the free Constitution Day Event in Arlington Virginia featuring Del. Bob Marshall. The Conservative Caucus is holding its annual Constitution Day event on the evening of September 17, featuring as the keynote speaker, defender of the Constitution and Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall. The event is free and in Arlington at the Hyatt Arlington, right near the Rosslyn Metro. 7:00-9:00pm. Info: www.conservativeusa.org/const-day.htm Hyatt Arlington Hotel, 1325 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22209 For more information call 703-938-9626 or email info@conservativeusa.org Let us know if you will attend. Thank you very much, and please forward to your friends in...

A chart I made for my blog of non-defense government spending since 1910. I think this shows why we are where we are.

<p>The owner of the New York Jets has apologized to a TV Azteca reporter following allegations that Jets personnel harassed her at practice this weekend, and she has accepted, the reporter told CNN's Rick Sanchez on Monday.</p> <p>The NFL says it is investigating media reports that Jets players behaved inappropriately - including allegedly hooting and hollering at her in their locker room - when Ines Sainz visited the team Saturday to interview Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez for the Mexican TV network.</p>