Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) intends to bring the 2011 defense authorization bill to the floor next week. The defense bill contains critical military policy as well as a provision that would repeal the ban on openly gay people serving in the military. Reid was scheduled to meet with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Monday afternoon to discuss his plans. Gay rights groups view September as a critical month in the Senate for the fate of the defense authorization bill and the provision to repeal “Don't ask, don't tell.” Any action delayed until after the Nov. 2...

There are three important things going on in "The Tillman Story" (in selected theatres today), two of which almost make the conspiracy-mongering documentary worth your time. The first and best is the opportunity to get to know better the extraordinary and extraordinarily complicated and interesting Pat Tillman. In the best sense of the word, this was a fierce and fiercely passionate man - fierce on the football field, fierce on the battlefield, and fierce in his personal beliefs. This was also a man who only ever dated one woman, the woman he would marry the same week he enlisted; and...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

It's true! Castle voted with Democrats for a Bush impeachment resolution! As Mark said, this is stunning! Listen to the audio above and examine the links below.110TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. RES. 1258 Impeaching George W. Bush, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanorsFINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 401

Head of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in Israel, Brigadier-General Nitzan Nuriel, said Hizbullah owns drones and long-range missiles. "Hizbullah has weapons that are not found in Europe," Nuriel said during a lecture at the annual conference of counter-terrorism in Herzliya, a city located on the central coast of Israel. "Hizbullah has unmanned drones and missiles with a range of more than 300 km and so is the case of Hamas in Gaza," Nuriel added. "There is a strong relationship between global terrorist organizations and terrorism taking place in Israel," he said. Nuriel said terrorist organizations continue to get support and military...

The new “saddle” seat, to be unveiled at a conference this week, increases the number of seats an airline can have in its economy class. The design, named the “SkyRider”, allows just 23 inches of legroom, which is about seven inches less than the average seat's space of 30 inches. Shaped similar to a horse saddle, passengers sit at an angle, with their weight taken on by their legs. It allows seats to be overlapped... But while the designers claim it does not affect passenger comfort, they say it would only be suitable for flights of up to three hours....

Have you ever had that feeling sweep over you that you have been in the very same place before? That out-of-body, deja vu realization that something was happening that had happened before? While reading Amity Shlaes' history of the FDR Administration, The Forgotten Man I have experienced instance upon instance of that very sensation. I find myself checking the publication date again and again: 2007. She published the book in 2007, wrote it in the years leading up to 2007. While Bush was still president. Before Obama was the certain Democrat candidate, the president. There is no way she could...

There is an old Pennsylvania Dutch proverb that goes, “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” Some colleges still have a youthful outlook. “In the last few years, however, a cottage industry has sprouted up in academe to measure whether students are actually learning and to reform classes that don’t deliver,” Robin Wilson wrote in the September 10, 2010 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Accreditors now press colleges to show that they are teaching what students need to know.” It’s an uphill battle. “Faculty rewards have nothing to do with the ability to assess student learning,”...

Several Republican primaries Tuesday serve as the latest test for a party establishment that has seen many of its chosen candidates overtaken by tea-party activists looking for a renewed commitment to conservative principles. Insurgent Republicans are drawing enthusiastic support from conservatives in Delaware and New York, but establishment party leaders and even some tea party activists worry those candidates could damage Republican chances in November in traditionally liberal states. And in New Hampshire, polls show the gap closing between the establishment front-runner for U.S. Senate, Kelly Ayotte, and a tea party-embracing challenger, Ovide Lamontagne. A new Delaware survey released Monday...

Mormon folks in Utah have been fleeced of $1.4 billion over the past few years in affinity fraud schemes designed to exploit their connection to the LDS community and culture, according to news reports. Oh, yes, we've all seen it. Or heard about it from friends and relatives. Ponzi schemes. Multi-level marketing. Miracle health products. Peddled to people who have been raised in an LDS culture that values “insider” status, kinship ties, hierarchy, and unquestioning respect for authority over critical thinking and skepticism. A Mormon taste for the miraculous doesn’t hurt either. Fraud peddlers have been known to call down...

‘Washington: We Have a Problem” proclaims Vanity Fair magazine. In an eerie echo of the verdicts passed during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, namely that the presidency was “too big for one man,” Vanity Fair now declares “The evidence that Washington cannot function — that it’s ‘broken,’ as Vice President Joe Biden has said — is all around.” The Vanity Fair piece is a long apologia for President Obama’s perceived ineffectiveness, and reflects — no surprise here — the Obama interpretation of events. “The G.O.P.,” writes Todd Purdum, “has spent most of the period since the inauguration in near lockstep...

Evanston police are investigating the discovery of a headless body near an middle school there. Police won't confirm details until a 10 a.m. press conference. Evanston Police Commander Tom Guenther did say that headless body of a shirtless man was discovered near Nichols Middle School, 800 Greenleaf St. in Evanston after a loud explosion rocked the neighborhood. A man who was walking his dog discovered the body near the school tennis courts

Democrats seeking to regain footing among middle-class voters are putting trade anxiety at the forefront of new campaign messages, challenging free-trade deals backed by the White House and linking Republicans to corporate outsourcing. The new strategy comes as President Barack Obama is walking a fine line on the trade issue. Mr. Obama is pushing to sign a revised trade deal with South Korea by mid-November—a week after Election Day. At the same time, the White House is rallying unions and other core Democrats with calls to curb companies' abilities to shift jobs overseas. In southern Virginia, embattled Democratic Rep. Tom...

So which “No Compromise” organization is misleading its followers? Is Ovide Lamontagne an “A” or an “F”? Does he demonstrate “duplicity on the right to keep and bear arms” as claimed by NHFC, or has he demonstrated “unwavering support of the right to keep and bear arms” as claimed by GOA? Both groups cannot be correct in their assessment. You decide.

The indictment alleges that Bagley met the woman when she was 16 and a runaway and persuaded her to move into his trailer with promises of a "great life" and a future as a model and dancer. She got her own room, furniture and TV, and Bagley began giving her drugs, showing her pornography and sexually abusing her, prosecutors said. When she turned 18, he persuaded her to sign a 'sex slave contract," which he said bound her to him for life, prosecutors claim. Bagley "beat, whipped, flogged, suffocated, choked, electrocuted, caned, skewered, drowned, mutilated, hung and caged" the girl...

(CNN) - Guess who's getting slimed now in the increasingly nasty Senate race in Delaware: Republican stalwarts Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes. The charge: both men, editors of the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, are trying to undermine Delaware Republican Senate candidate and tea party darling Christine O'Donnell, or so her campaign manager says. "Call Bill Kristol and ask him why he's crossing swords with Governor Palin's endorsement. And Google Fred Barnes and see about him taking money from Republican leadership," a frustrated O'Donnell campaign manager Matt Moran told CNN. O'Donnell just won the endorsement of Sarah Palin. The Weekly...

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Asia, a conservative law professor is trying to cajole acting Gov. Abel Maldonado to appeal to defend California's same-sex marriage ban in court. John Eastman, who lost a bid in June to become the Republican nominee for attorney general, is calling on Proposition 8 supporters to "help Abel Maldonado do the right thing. Call him TODAY to say you support him filing the Notice of Appeal. . . . Call Now. Call Every Hour." Eastman, on his website today and in emails, is supplying office phone numbers and cell phone numbers for Maldonado, who is...

Too busy to attend the 100th Boy Scout National Jamboree and the Restoring Honor rally where hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in Obama's 'backyard,' the First Couple need to chill after last week's White House hip hop bump-and-grind fest before getting bizzay with this week's party events, which include the annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual Phoenix Awards dinner.

Today's Inventory Data Just Demolished The Notion Sales Growth Sucks Right Now Vincent Fernando, CFA Sep. 14, 2010, 10:36 AM Some skeptics of the recent economic recovery have blown-off rising corporate profits by blaming cost-cutting efforts and saying that sales growth has been nonexistent. Well today's inventory data kills that idea. As shown below, on both a seasonally-adjusted and raw non-seasonally-adjusted basis, sales in July were 9.2% and 8.0% higher respectively. Sales growth is indeed happening, and when the S&P 500 is at just 1,120 you can't ask for better than 8-9% growth, which is decent. Thus profits growth won't...