Free Republic

No. This is a lame decision. Teach the kids what the flag means, instead of banning it. Yes. The safety of students comes first. Not sure, but of all things to ban, the American flag would seem the least 'incendiary.' Other (post a comment)

Without the ingenuity of America’s brightest minds and the investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars, there would be no Internet, as we now know it today. Now, the Obama administration has moved quietly to cede control of the Web from the United States to foreign powers. Some background: The Internet came into being because of the genius work of Americans Dr.Robert E. Kahn and Dr. Vinton G. Cerf. These men, while working for the Department of Defense in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the early 1970s, conceived, designed, and implemented the idea of "open-architecture networking."

HONOLULU – The Republican National Committee has adopted a rule that will prod GOP leaders to provide financial support to only those candidates who support the party's platform. The resolution, enacted by voice vote with no opposition at the party's winter meeting here on Friday, is an alternative to a more stringent proposal that would have required GOP candidates to support 10 policy positions if they wanted party help. That proposal, sponsored by Indiana RNC member James Bopp and backed by the RNC's more conservative members, was strongly opposed by party Chairman Michael Steele and a group of state party...

I hate violence. So much that I can barely tolerate the evening news, where crime is given a spotlight. Yes, I know it exists, but why should I dwell on it? It only serves to depress me because I feel so helpless against it. Why would people ever commit such acts? It is mind boggling. The Fort Hood killings were heartbreaking, terrible, and should never have happened. Innocent soldiers were hurt, and the lives of their families will change forever. No one should die the way they did. When I first heard about them, I was upset, of course. I...

Last week a new bill was introduced in the Senate to audit the Federal Reserve. Some backers of my bill HR1207 and the existing Senate companion bill S.604 were a little miffed at this, but depending on how you think about it, this new legislation poses no great threat to our efforts. With the economy in shambles, people are looking for answers - not just because of lost savings on Wall Street, but because of lost houses on Main Street. Because of the many problems we face, the Federal Reserve and its powers over the economy have come under scrutiny....

The Nobel committee did President Obama no favors by prematurely awarding him its peace prize. As he himself acknowledged, he has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award — and it dismays me that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way. It is not the president’s fault, though, that the Europeans are so relieved at his style of leadership, in contrast to that of his predecessor, that they want to do all they can to validate and encourage it. I thought the president showed great grace in...

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage. He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I'll spend five minutes warming up on the VersaClimber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I'll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy — an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from...

The new Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, was still a comedian and just starting to be an author when I met him at a radio studio in San Francisco in 1996. I was pitching my "The Case Against Immigration" book. I made the case to him in the waiting room. He didn't seem to buy it then. And he definitely didn't buy it last week in his first votes in favor of keeping U.S. jobs in the hands of illegal foreign workers. A LIBERAL CASE TOO HARD FOR A LIBERAL TO SWALLOW? I had spoken to an environmentalist gathering in...

Mortgage lenders and financial institutions face the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the Great Depression. A plan outlined by President Barack Obama calls for the creation of a powerful new regulator to oversee all aspects of mortgage lending, continued lender liability on securitized loans and the elimination of the Office of Thrift Supervision (an agency of the US Treasury Department which is responsible for regulating the savings and loan industry). President Obama has unveiled a comprehensive plan for regulatory reform, which he describes as a “response to an historic economic crisis”. Obama said that the unravelling of major financial...

Should the motto "In God We Trust" be removed from U.S. currency? * 15052379 responses FReep MSNBC Poll but be sure you read it first it is designed to trick you!

In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about how quiet things were with Congress out of town for the Fourth of July recess. But how things can change in just one week! Four immigration-reduction amendments to the Homeland Security spending bill were offered on the floor of the Senate this week, and thanks to you, we won all four! Things were a bit crazy at NumbersUSA’s two Washington-area offices on Wednesday and Thursday. The tech staff was hard at work making sure our website could handle our second busiest day of the year in terms of visitors, while the web content...

Denshay Benson, 17, is being held in lieu of bail totaling $10,000 on misdemeanor charges of assault with bodily injury and deadly conduct with a vehicle. 17-year-old high school senior was in jail Thursday night accused of assaulting the mayor of League City after an argument over a roadway incident in Clear Lake Shores overheated. Police say he punched her as he tried to leave, but his girlfriend says the mayor instigated the incident and used a racial epithet while cursing him loudly. Denshay Benson, 17, is charged with endangering Toni Randall with his vehicle and later knocking her to...

One-third of Travis Elementary School pupil missed school Thursday because of a mysterious illness, leaving Houston ISD and city officials scrambling to diagnose the cause. They suspect a virus is behind the fevers, headaches and stomachaches that sidelined 242 children, including about 80 percent of the third grade at the Heights neighborhood school. That’s a sharp increase from the 86 students who stayed home sick Wednesday, when educators were forced to cancel an extensive third-grade field trip. “I felt like really bad,” said 8-year-old Luke Morrison, who was too sick to attempt the much-anticipated trip. “I just was scared. I...

A few weeks ago there was an exchange between Councilmember Pam Holm and Controller Annise Parker over whether the city’s budget was balanced and what it actually means to have a balanced budget. The controller asserted that the city’s 2009 budget was balanced. Let me assure the reader that is not the case. Here are the facts. The city’s 2009 budget projects that the city will have general fund revenues of $1.84 billion. These revenues are derived from property taxes, sales taxes, fees and fines and certain miscellaneous categories such as interfund transfers and the sale of capital assets. However,...

2009 Blessing of the Fleet The 41st annual “Blessing of the Shrimp and Pleasure Boat Fleet” will be held Sunday May 3, at 2:00 on the Clear Creek Channel, along the Kemah Boardwalk. Colorfully decorated shrimp boats and pleasure craft will file past the Cadillac “Authentic Mexican Restaurant” where they will be blessed by the officiating priest and minister. Hurricane Ike took a devastating toll on our area especially the local shrimpers.  Their livelihood was directly affected and many have yet to recover.  Therefore, our main focus this year will be to help them in their recovery efforts.  Bring...

MSNBC has a live poll to grade Obama's performance as President, and we need to get some conservative voice showing up in the results! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093 PLEASE VOTE AND THEN PASS THIS ON!!!

Seventy-five members of Congress asked House leaders on Tuesday to shut down a loophole allowing billions in economic stimulus funds to go to some 300,000 construction workers who are in the country illegally. “I believe that this figure may be low,” Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., tells Newsmax.

MOSCOW – If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order. Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership. "There is a high probability that the...

For five years, classical liberal columnist and Council on Foreign Relations fellow Amity Shlaes delved deeply into the history of the Great Depression. She had been an op-ed editor at the Wall Street Journal, a WSJ columnist reuniting Germany, and a columnist for the Financial Times. She wrote two books, on German national identity and on America’s tax policy, critiqued from the right. Both sold well, but neither one foreshadowed the success she’d have with her research on the New Deal. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, published in 2007, has become one of the most...