Free Republic

Two U.S. senators met with President Obama on Thursday to push for a national ID card with biometric information such as a fingerprint, hand scan, or iris scan that all employers would be required to verify. In an opinion article published in Friday's edition of the Washington Post, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) say the new identification cards will "ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs" and "dramatically decrease illegal immigration." It comes just two days before a rally in Washington, D.C. sponsored by groups including the AFL-CIO, Farmworker Justice, and the National Council of La Raza that...

HAMMOND, Ind. – A federal judge has ordered a former northern Indiana mayor and two ex-aides to pay $108 million in civil damages in an alleged sidewalks-for-votes scheme. The suit says former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick and others spent $24 million in public money on private driveways, patios and walkways to court voters in 1999. Pastrick left office in 2004 and was never charged criminally.

Four of every five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right, and more than half believe it should never be regulated, according to a new survey. In a BBC World Service poll of 27,000 adults in 26 countries, 78 percent of Internet users believed the Internet is a fundamental right--with particularly strong response in South Korea and China. Nine in 10 adults said the Internet was a good place to learn.

The amount of venture capital that went toward green-technology companies fell to $4.85 billion in 2009, compared to $7.6 billion in 2008, according to numbers published on Wednesday by Greentech Media. The number of deals was up slightly from 350 in 2008 to 356 this year. ... But even with billions of government stimulus dollars spent on energy, the economic downturn has clearly had an impact on the overall sector. Venture capitalists cut off funding for at least two companies in 2009--algae fuel company Greenfuel Technologies and battery company Imara, which both failed to generate significant revenues.

It is my humble suggestion that the monstrosity of handouts to thugs, unions, and dependents be henceforth known as: Porkulus Marximus. That's my vanity for the season.

So I see a lot of Atlas Shrugged references here, but not as many as I should given the current environment. It's a great novel, and John Galt's speech is fantastic, but not having read the novel in 6 or 8 years I realized I've been overlooking something even more relevant right now. The story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company! The link just happened to be the first place I found it excerpted online, but the author has it dead on: it stands just fine on its own without the rest of the novel. It's the story of what...

Bear with me here. I work nights, so yesterday evening I started seeing the posts about multi-state FBI investigations into ACORN, finally hitting them with RICO charges based in Chicago, etc. Then the $140k sell on the Obama contract on Intrade, and a similar buy on McCain. Then in the wee hours of the morning mentions of the McCain campaign's huge news announcement, and Fox's coverage coming up. October surprise, etc... I come home, go to bed, get up hoping for the wheels of justice to be creaking into motion...and can't find a single bit of news or one new...

State officials are hoping to contain any worries about identity theft after more than 1,200 mailings containing the Social Security numbers of state welfare recipients were sent to the wrong addresses. ... "We take this very seriously and we are working with the machine manufacturer to determine the cause of the problem to ensure that this doesn't happen again," ... She said the department has no evidence that any information in the erroneous mailings had been used inappropriately.

I wouldn't post this if it were just run of the mill bias, but it was on the front page of Yahoo with all the real news, with the title "Biden gives ticket decades of foreign policy experience". The rest is pure cheerleading...the author doesn't even pretend to give the usual lip service to the other side of any point. He actually uses the word "moderate" to describe Biden's voting record, and the descriptions he makes throughout are a joke. The Yahoo/AP combo results in a lot of junk opinion mixed in with the "news" on one of the most...

"Is gun regulation a public health issue?" http://broadcaster.medpagetoday.com/t?r=2&c=1898&l=15&ctl=CA06:5D21AFF7DD791D1C59086A13CA638538