Free Republic

PANAMA CITY — For U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, the federal government shutdown is a fight to hold every American to the same standard under the country’s new health care law. Along with the House Republican majority, Southerland, R-Panama City, has backed resolutions to eliminate Affordable Care Act subsidies for members of Congress and delay the individual mandate for a year to avert a government shutdown. Democrats have said they will not negotiate until the government is reopened and the debt limit raised. Southerland said the Democratic-controlled Senate’s rejection of the proposal and refusal to negotiate is setting a dangerous precedent...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute. Why was a diplomatic outpost left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did President Barack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected? Congressional Republicans are poking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack....

We tend not to get too excited about sensor dust problems at LensRentals; we clean sensors on every camera after every rental, so it’s just routine. When we started carrying the Nikon D600, they all arrived with a fair amount of dust, but that’s pretty routine, too. Manufacturing and shipping can be a dusty experience. When our techs started complaining that D600s were all coming back from their first rental with a lot more dust (despite being freshly cleaned before leaving) we didn’t pay much attention to that either. We all remember the oil/dust issues the D3x and D3s had....

BANGOR, Maine – A US Airways jet flying from Paris to Charlotte, North Carolina, has been diverted to Maine because of what an airline spokesman calls a "security issue." A North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman says two F-15 fighters were scrambled to escort the plane. A person briefed on the incident said a passenger announced she had a surgically implanted device. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because it involved sensitive law enforcement information. US Airways spokesman Andrew Christie says the jet with 179 passengers was diverted around noon Tuesday to Bangor International Airport. He says there was...

Yeah, but that was before he personally swooped in and took out Osama bin Laden with his bare hands. (CNSNews.com) – Speaking in Iowa in 2006, Sen. Barack Obama said, “I’ve had enough of using terrorism as a wedge issue in our politics.” He said the war on terrorism “isn’t supposed to crop up between September and November of even-numbered years.” But as president, Obama and his reelection campaign have consistently raised the issue — repeatedly referring to a 2007 comment by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to suggest that Romney would not have ordered the killing of Osama bin...

Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) Monday said a deal to cut the federal deficit fell apart because Republicans refused to raise taxes, and said the issue would be the defining debate for Congress as the country heads toward the 2012 elections. "America is stuck with the absolute rigidity of people who wanted to protect the wealthiest people in the country instead of providing $1.2 trillion of deficit reduction," Kerry said in impassioned remarks hours after the congressional panel announced it had failed to reach a deal. "That's the fight we have to take out to the country over the course...

More tolerance and wuv from the colonization and invading army of religion of peaceniks: Fatwa against Theresa May: Scotland Yard investigates Islamic poster campaign targeting Home Secretary Posters issuing a fatwa against Theresa May have appeared in South London, prompting an investigation by Scotland Yard. The Metropolitan Police are seeking the source of the Wild West-style posters, which claim the fatwa has been issued 'for the abduction, kidnapping and false imprisonment' of various radical clerics. A fatwa can - but not always - be interpreted as an incitement to kill, and is an order issued by scholars in the Islamic...

PASADENA - As soaring gold prices tempt many to sell off jewelry and other gold items, police are working to keep thieves from taking advantage of the trend by making it difficult to sell stolen gold. With gold selling for more than $1,400 per ounce, officials remind the public that there are laws governing the buying and selling of gold, Pasadena police said in a written statement. "The Pasadena Police Department would like to inform the public that buying gold is against the law unless you are licensed by the California Department of Justice," the statement said. In addition, police...

At a Reno event earlier this summer, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was surprised “to finally find someone named Elvira,” referring to the woman being honored there for her community work. “I’ll tell you why,” Reid told the room full of supporters. “Everyone knows my dad was a miner. And one of the mines that I went underground with was the Elvira – the Elvira Mine. “I own that now,” he said — and the audience erupted in applause. Indeed, Reid’s personal wealth, estimated in 2009 at $3.1 million to $6.7 million, has been built largely on his...

Why has the GOP not made a big stink over the fact that the Democratic controlled Congress, for the first time in many years, did not give Social Security recipients a COLA raise in 2010? Huh? That should be a major campaign issue this year.

The Department of Homeland Security is alerting Texas authorities to be on the lookout for a suspected member of the Somalia-based Al Shabaab terrorist group who might be attempting to travel to the U.S. through Mexico, a security expert who has seen the memo tells FOXNews.com.

22. However, the defense has a good faith belief that Mr. Rezko, President Obama’s former friend, fund-raiser, and neighbor told the FBI and the United States Attorneys a different story about President Obama. In a recent in camera proceeding, the government tendered a three paragraph letter indicating that Rezko “has stated in interviews with the government that he engaged in election law violations by personally contributing a large sum of cash to the campaign of a public official who is not Rod Blagojevich. … Further, the public official denies being aware of cash contributions to his campaign by Rezko or...

There are at least two sides to every issue, and each side can make an earnest, heartfelt case for its side, and make it appear as if reasonable people can disagree. Like Walter Mondale's people, for example, telling us on November 1, 1984 that Walter had a good plan for the American people and that he was the better candidate. A couple of days later there was that little 49 state landslide that told them they were full of sh*t. This is where the Dems sit today on the drilling issue.

When is the last time food managed to become a campaign issue? The answer is four years ago, when Republicans and conservatives made much of the fact that the “elitist, effete” John Kerry ordered a Philly cheese steak sandwich topped with Swiss rather than Cheez Whiz. Campaign coverage has become more and more substance-free over the years, with this year’s obsession over ministers and Hillary Clinton’s experience with firearms ranking as the absolutely silliest display, probably ever. There was a day when American journalism had no standards, but even those – by comparison – were sobering, serious discussions of policy....

Democrat Bill Foster won the Illinois House seat occupied for more than two decades by former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, who retired before the end of his term. The result shows that Democrats not only have political enthusiasm on their side but that Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who endorsed Mr. Foster, is a campaign asset down ballot, at least in his home state. ...To his credit, Mr. Oberweis did talk about lower taxes, smaller government and other Republican themes. But as in his past campaigns, the issue he hit hardest was illegal immigration. One of his infamous Senate ads featured...

It’s one thing for Barack Obama to have a minister, friend, and sounding board who supports and admires Louis Farrakhan and whose church gave him an award. It’s another thing for Obama to dissemble about it. That’s what Obama did recently when he told Jewish leaders in Cleveland, “An award was given to Farrakhan for his work on behalf of ex-offenders, completely unrelated to his controversial statements.” In fact, the award, named for Obama’s minister Jeremiah Wright Jr., was given for “lifetime achievement” and for Farrakhan’s “influence on the African-American community.” The presentation of the award last December and the...

Almost 35 years have passed since the Supreme Court decided to end America's argument about abortion. Because of the court's supposedly therapeutic intervention in the nation's supposedly inadequate democratic debate about that subject, the issue still generates an irritable irrationality that was largely absent before 1973. ...Nevertheless, it is said that if the Republican Party wants to be competitive in California in presidential politics, it must nominate a pro-choice candidate, of which there is only one -- Rudy Giuliani. This is almost certainly true. It certainly is irrational because pro-choice Californians have next to nothing to fear -- just as...

How popular is global warming as a political issue? So popular that even conservative state lawmakers are getting into the act, using the issue to sell everything from building dams and nuclear power plants to thinning forests. The arguments are simple enough: Higher temperatures reduce mountain snowpack, so more dams are needed to capture winter precipitation that falls as rain. Nuclear power plants produce few greenhouse gases, the leading cause of manmade warming. Forest fires, on the other hand, send plenty of gases into the air -- so why not encourage timber companies to clear more brush to reduce fire...

TRENTON, N.J. - Global warming could strain the Northeast's power grid, farms, forests and marine fisheries by the next century unless carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by 3 percent each year, according to a report released Wednesday. The climate in the nine states — from New Jersey and Pennsylvania up to Maine — could become like that of the South with longer, much hotter summers and warmer winters with less snow, the report by the Union of Concerned Scientists said. "This has enormous implications for human health. It puts a lot of stress on the energy system. It could lead...