Free Republic

What issue could unite a Republican lawmaker from Southern California and a 46-year-old lesbian from Natomas? Guns, of course. A bill introduced in the state Assembly last month aims to make it easier for Californians to obtain a concealed weapons permit.

Ironic: The same union demands big business return the money to the workers of America for stealing from them. Of all the ironies that come out of this story. Watch videos: http://www.butasforme.com/2009/03/20/seiu-member-who-met-with-biden-caught-stealing/

WASHINGTON -- Existing-home sales rebounded in February, climbing above expectations, but prices plunged again. Home resales climbed to a 4.72 million annual rate, a 5.1% increase from January's unrevised 4.49 million annual pace, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Foreclosures and short sales reflect about 45% of total existing-home sales. Distressed properties are discounted, so the abundance of these sales prices new homes out of the market, discouraging construction and weakening the overall housing sector further. With so many distressed sales, the median price for an existing home fell last month. At $165,400 in February, the median price was...

An FAA spokesman is quoted by the New York Times as saying as many as 17 people, many of them children, were on board a 12-seat Pilatus PC-12 and all died when the aircraft crashed and exploded in a cemetery in Butte, Montana on Sunday. Les Dorr told the Times that 14 to 17 people were on the aircraft, which left Oroville, Calif., 70 miles north of Sacramento, Calif. for Bozeman, Mont.. The plane diverted to Butte en route and crashed within 500 feet of the airport. The reason for the diversion has not been released but Butte would...

There are growing indications that the Obama administration is melting down, unraveling and falling apart. The clearest indication is Barack Obama and his treasury secretary failing to come up with a plan to fix the bank/credit crisis. He is proposing solutions for every social problem ever identified by liberal Democrats, but doesn’t seem to be dealing with what should be his No. 1 priority. The bank fix is supposed to be announced by Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, during this week. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but the early days of the Obama administration will be remembered for his...

Controversial Measure Backs Decriminalizing Homosexuality In Some Parts Of The WorldA decision by the Obama administration to endorse a United Nations resolution calling for the decriminalizing of homosexuality has been met with dismay among pro-family advocates. The announcement, which was issued by the State Department last week, is a turnaround from the position held by former President George W. Bush. The Franco-Dutch resolution found that 77 nations worldwide criminalize homosexuality, seven of which sentence the offender to death. Supporters say the resolution is geared at promoting human rights and protecting gay individuals in such hostile countries. “Human rights is, and...

As Democrats prepared to unleash a massive public relations blitz to reassure wary voters Barack Obama’s budget is good for the nation, the man Mr. Obama previously picked to head the Commerce Department told CNN the budget would bankrupt the nation. “The practical implications of this is bankruptcy for the United States,” U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said of the Obama administration’s recently released budget. “There’s no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals that are in this budget over the 10-year period that this budget covers, this country will go bankrupt. People will not buy our debt,...

Murderous Trend Similar To Killings In PhiladelphiaSaturday’s killing of three police officers — leaving the fourth brain dead — in Oakland, Calif., shares a disturbing thread with the murderous trend that has been occurring in Philadelphia over the past several years: The murderer was a parolee with an extensive criminal history, including violent felonies. The three officers were killed by the parolee in two separate, but related, shootouts Saturday afternoon. The alleged murderer, Lovelle Mixon, who was killed in the second shootout, was wanted on a no-bail warrant for violating his parole on a conviction for an assault with a deadly...

So, when are President Barack Obama and Senator Chris Dodd giving back the "bonuses" that they received from American International Group (AIG)? By now, you know the story. After receiving another $170 billion in so-called stimulus funding from the American taxpayer, AIG paid out $165 million in bonuses to its executives. Almost immediately, the Obama Administration and liberals in Congress FEIGNED outrage. They even had the audacity to claim that they knew nothing about these bonuses. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pontificated; "We want our money back now for the taxpayers." Senator Charles Schumer ominously threatened AIG executives; “If...

San Francisco police told to shut up about it By Wes Vernon You are earnestly urged to believe that President Obama's Justice Department is seriously investigating a 39-year-old murder case involving his political friends and communist terrorists Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorn. That assurance is given as justification by Attorney General Eric Holder's agency to tell San Francisco police officers (present and retired) to shut up because any day now, some arrests are to be made in this "active" case. Earlier this month, members of the San Francisco Police Officers Association appeared at a news conference sponsored by...

Larry Grathwohl will talk about his work as a federal investigator assigned to penetrate Bill Ayers' and Bernardine Dohrn's Weathermen -- the bombings and the deaths -- and a new possibility for prosecution. The investigation is supposedly ongoing, with federal direction, but the local police in San Francisco have been ordered not to talk about it, by the Obama feds. Also discussed: the entire Marxist network in America, right up to Barack Obama. We will be taking calls, call in and let us know whats on your mind. (646) 727-2652

It was early in the investigation, but already the FBI was getting on Vince Fumo's nerves. In a typically blunt e-mail, he wrote to a top aide in 2004 that a delicate part of his anatomy had just been "busted by my 2 friendly female FBI agents." Then he cursed them. His aide replied: "I do not like those people. Long live the realm of Fumo-world! :-)" Now former State Sen. Fumo stands convicted of scores of counts of corruption in a $4 million fraud, his aide has lost his job, and Fumo-world is a smoking ruin. Relentlessly civil, but...

Busy week, busy people, and somehow I missed Matthew Vadum's report revealing that President Obama's first judicial appointee, David Hamilton, is a former ACORN fundraiser. I didn't see it until it was mentioned in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today. Michelle Malkin has a whole blog category devoted to "ACORN Watch," so how she missed this one I don't know, but Twitter is an amazing tool: rsmccain@michellemalkin Michelle, please prepare to blow a gasket http://tinyurl.com/cdcszj #tcot So we're now in gasket-blowing countdown mode. Will let you know when Mt. Malkin erupts.

Over the past ten days, as the furor over AIG retention plan bonuses has focused on Sen. Chris Dodd and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, the White House has undertaken a PR offensive to protect the highest ranking Obama Administration official who was involved in the House and Senate negotiations over the stimulus bill, in which the AIG waiver language was inserted. "Right now, you get the feeling this is all about protecting [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel,” says a former Treasury Department lawyer, who worked in that department's counsel's office on the Troubled Asset Relief Program...

My friend Ken Marrero, aka the Blue Collar Muse, reports on conservative/libertarian profiling. Have an inappropriate bumper sticker on your car and the cops are warned that you might be a threat. Writes Ken: Missouri State Police have been alerted to be on the lookout for subversive drivers who may be domestic terrorists or members of militia groups. How can Missouri Law Enforcement know the car in front of them might be carrying dangerous people? Why from their bumper stickers of course! Among the bumper stickers listed as indicative of dangerous, anti-Americans behind the wheel are those supporting Ron Paul...

The so-called Service Employees International Union represents government employees and has grown while other unions have shrunk. The fact that it claims to represent workers apparently doesn't affect how it treats its own workers. The union actually behaves like the sort of abusive corporate slave-master that organized labor claims dominate the workplace and must be resisted. Reports the Washington Post: As it helps push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the country's fastest-growing union is engaged in its own labor dispute with employees it is seeking to lay off. The Service Employees International Union, considered...

WILL our economic trou bles produce a significant rise in crime? It's not as certain as some suggest. The common predictions of rising crime bring to mind the eminent criminologists who warned in the 1990s that "super predators" were about to go on the rampage or that the country would soon experience "a bloodbath." In fact, the reverse happened. Since 1990, cities across America have seen large drops in crime with New York, down 75 percent, leading the way. A look at the Great Depression of the 1930s suggests a jump in the crime rate is not inevitable now. And...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will on Monday provide details about the government's latest plan to help rid banks of toxic assets clogging the financial system. The Treasury Department said in a press release that it will hold the briefing at 8:45 a.m. EDT on Monday. The Treasury Department's program involves setting up a new investment fund to buy mortgage-related securities and other assets weighing down bank balance sheets. The new Public Private Investment Program would combine taxpayer money with private funds, aiming to buy loans and free up banks to renew lending. The Wall Street Journal...

CLOWNS ON CAPITOL HILL *** Wouldn't it be a fine gesture if Barney Frank, Rangel and Chris Dodd retroactively returned campaign funds from banks that are now wards of the government? NAMES REDACTED Palm Beach, Fla. *** The American electorate has its own method of judging right or wrong. It's called Election Day.....Flushing ***.....the people who set the collapse of the financial markets into motion had the audacity to take AIG's Liddy to task for a bonus payout that they themselves legislated......treating us to the sleight of hand of Dodd, who received more AIG campaign contributions than anyone in 2008....

Congress' lopsided vote on Thursday to tax AIG executives' bonuses at no less than 90%, and to apply the same to other bailout recipients, undermines Constitutional and contract law and is a clear abuse of power. Americans who applaud this act may want to think twice. If Congress is willing to break the law to confiscate these executives' bonuses, what will stop it from extending legislation to those who receive no government bailout money? You may say that's absurd. This is a special case. Congress is merely recovering taxpayer money from ill-managed and profligate enterprises. But Charles Krauthammer writes: "[T]here...