Free Republic

Two very large numbers are essential in the American public debate today. They are so big that they are almost inconceivable. The first number is 15.5 trillion. That’s a 14 digit number. $15.5 trillion is the size of the U.S. national debt—more or less the amount the federal government owes individuals, organizations, and governments that have loaned money to it. To put this number in a more human perspective, it’s roughly $50,000 for every person in the United States. $50,000 is more than the U.S. median income, about $44,000. That means if a normal, working American worked an entire year...

By the time they're done with him, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will look like a leading Democratic spokesman as the party moves quickly to harness his attacks on Republican plans to change Medicare. According to party sources, they plan to use Gingrich's assault on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan in a bid to knock down every Republican who voted for it. "By calling Paul Ryan's budget 'radical' and 'right-wing social engineering,' Newt merely echoed criticisms millions of Americans across the political spectrum have voiced at house Republicans' budget for weeks now," says Ryan Rudominer, a Democratic consultant...

This morning Republicans are just beginning to assess the damage that former House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has done to the GOP budget plan currently before Congress. On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Gingrich denounced House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan's plan to restructure Medicare, saying, "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate."

“IT WAS very difficult,” said Jane Tomlinson yesterday. Some of us might use that phrase to describe getting out of bed on a Monday morning, but she was referring to the epic 4,200-mile (6,760 km) ride across the US that she had just completed. Her website describes it as “the greatest endurance feat ever to be attempted by someone with terminal cancer”, and it is difficult to dispute the claim. On Wednesday her husband Mike had grave fears that his 42-year-old wife was too ill to complete the final leg to New York. But somehow she found the energy to...

<p>'We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now'...</p>

Saddam never had WMD? Below please find two articles that refute the idea that there were never any WMD in Iraq. Lately I have read silly things like, “Saddam never had WMD’s.” Let us not be fooled by revisionist history. These two articles speak for themselves... BOSTON, MA (April 29, 1993) - For the first time ever, scientists have been able to prove the use of chemical weapons through the analysis of environmental residues taken years after such an attack occurred. In a development that could have far-reaching consequences for the enforcement of the chemical weapons treaty, soil samples taken...

I have the opportunity to convince someone to vote for Dubya. I need a good link that would summarize this. Anyone have any ideas?