Free Republic

Nearly 14 years ago in an appearance on “The Charlie Rose Show,” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich revealed that he had sought advice from Pennsylvania State University coach Joe Paterno while at the helm of the U.S. House of Representatives. “I’ve talked to Joe Paterno at Penn State a couple of times and said, ‘Alright, I’m not getting this thing done right. What would you change?’ He gave me very good advice about how he coaches and how he brings along his assistant coaches and how he deals with the players. He said, ‘First of all, you’ve got...

PREMONT (Kiii News) - A man, thought to be an illegal immigrant, is on the loose after reportedly attacking two women at a cemetery in Premont Wednesday night. Police, sheriff's deputies, and border patrol agents never found the man. The women say the man came out of nowhere, claiming to be from Mexico and in need of a ride to Houston. That man reportedly pushed the two women, grabbed one of their car keys, got in their SUV, and then tried to drive off with one of the lady's five month-old baby in the backseat. The women recently recounted to...

I don't really have anybody I can talk to about this that would understand. I don't expect FR too either, but it's as good a place as any to vent. You know what I do? I get up every day and go to work. I do my job and get my work done. I come home. I do it again the next day. And then again, and again, and again. When I am dead, the most anyone will ever say about me is "he went to work ever day". If I were to simply drop dead, everything would pretty much...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has granted the first pardons of his presidency, to nine people convicted of crimes including possessing drugs, counterfeiting and even mutilating coins. No one well-known was on the list, and some of the crimes dated back decades or had drawn little more than a slap on the wrist in the first place - such as the Pennsylvania man sentenced in 1963 to probation and a $20 fine for mutilating coins. The mutilation of coins occurred when a young Marine made dimes out of pennies, cutting the lip off, to use the coins in vending...

On the occasion of President Obama’s first 100 days in office, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) highlights five memorable quotations from the Obama Administration:

Suspect held in fatal stabbing BY HENRI BRICKEY AND ERIC FINLEY AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Lubbock Police arrested a 25-year-old man in the Monday evening stabbing death of a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. Donald J. McCullough, 73, was killed around 5:30 p.m. inside the garage of his Southwest Lubbock home as he unloaded dry cleaning from his SUV. He and his wife were headed to San Antonio today to attend the Air Force retirement ceremony of their son, said a longtime friend who later arrived at the scene. Police didn't know Monday evening why a man ran into McCullough's garage, fought with...

It is rare that a movie affects me so profoundly that I feel compelled to write about it, but Nancy Meyers' "The Holiday," starring Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, and Jack Black, is just such a movie: It is so bad it drove me from the theater before it was even finished. I pride myself on sitting through to the bitter end during even the most ridiculous movies. It's how I got through What Dreams May Come, with clenched teeth and steely determination. But pride goeth before an evacuation, and after one hour and forty minutes, my friend and...

President Bush has become so unpopular in recent months that he'd have a hard time beating Al Gore or John Kerry if he had to face his former Democratic rivals again this year, according to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. And the president would be thrashed if he had to run against his own father, George Herbert Walker Bush, losing by more than a 3-to-1 margin in a theoretical match-up in which people were asked to pick between father and son. The 2000 and 2004 elections are among a very few presidential races that Americans would change, according to interviews...

Many in the Evangelical, pro-life and other cultural conservative camps have seen the latest vacancy on the Supreme Court as THE appointment that will finally tip the philosophy of the Supreme Court far enough right to present a case that could overturn the bitterly divisive Roe vs Wade court decision of the 70's. Certainly there are many sides to this complex issue that has torn the country for over 30 years. A reading of the Supreme Court decision offers an amazing writing that draws not only from the 14th amendment and what has been termed the right to privacy, but...

(I am a staunch conservative converted to the right by Rush Limbaugh. I remember the exact issue of my conversion - Limbaugh pointed out that so called cuts in federal spending were actually cuts in the growth of spending. Clinton's duplicity in using the words "spending cuts" insulted my sense of what defines honesty as did Clinton in general. But over the years I have become critical of talk show hosts. )In my opinion the best hosts are as follows; Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Denver's Mike Rosen and Laura Ingraham. Hosts that suffer by comparison include Sean Hannity,...

If as it appears Bush will nominate a moderate named Edith Clement to the Court, will the Right bolt from the GOP in next years midterms? Bush, someone I have been a big fan of, is turning out to be a heck of a disappoinment. He hasn't controlled the borders and apparently only used the promise to appoint "strict constructionists" as a cynical ploy to get re-elected. Bush, like his father before him, is proving to be a huge demoralizer for the Right.

Well, I call him Orca...the killer whale. "Hey Teddy, What if I'm pregnant?" "Don't worry Mary-Joe, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Bumper sticker seen on car. "More people were killed in Ted Kennedy's car than at Three Mile Island."

Have you signed up with your employer for an automatic payroll deposit? Then be warned. The employer has access to your bank account for 5 days after the deposit is made. Technically, the employer can only debit your account to reverse an error. BUT IN REALITY, he can debit your account for the full amount of your check for any reason he chooses. Revenge. Coercion. Whatever. Your bank won't care; it's not their problem. His bank won't care, or they may fake it and just not call you back. The ACH people won't care. Mid-America Payment Exchange won't care (it's...

Maureen Dowd, as many of you have probably surmised, is no real fan of President Bush or anyone in his administration. She really isn't a fan of very much, except for perhaps, Sam Cooke and surprisingly Lawrence Summers. At least she found Summers a convenient jumping off point into her attack on Condelizza Rice. Maureen, while taking a sabatical from The Sandia Laboratory to pen a few columns for The New York Times, suggests that Condi brush up on her math skills. An amusing anecdote from a woman who thinks 32 years after the Roe v. Wade decision minus the...

Ever hear of how republican's always call the liberal left "Whiner's"? Well, take a look at Wa. State, ...who are the Whiner's now? LOTS OF LAUGHS! Boy, the shoes on the other foot now! I think it's great, don't you? These people deserve it..! Has anyone seen the comedian on HBO, who gave a discription of a "Republican"? Wow was that great, and very very true.

Sorry can't buy Fox's suggestion that Kerry pulled out a pen. Between Kerry's slight of hand trick and Lehrer's wink to Kerry after the debate. Somethings fishy.

Imus and Biden made me put brandy in my breakfast coffee at 4:30am in my Baja retreat. Senor Fanning

<p>Dems are set to take to the airwaves anew with questions about President Bush's National Guard duty, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.</p> <p>Candidate Kerry apparently has rejected former President Clinton's advice not to get further locked in a 2004 Vietnam quagmire.</p>

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) described President Bush (news - web sites) Monday as a tyrannical political imbecile who put Adolf Hitler in the shade and said Pyongyang could see no justification for talks with his administration. Six-party working-level talks on the communist North's nuclear weapons ambitions had been planned for August but have yet to materialize. The September date for more senior talks is also in question, although diplomats note Pyongyang often raises its rhetorical voice before attending talks or compromising. South Korea (news - web sites)'s foreign ministry said Monday its top nuclear negotiators...

The question is: "Is Kerry sticking his bony, well-manicured, girly, index finger in the chest of the Marine pictured here?" The answer is "No." After optimizing the pic with Photoshop and Image Optimizer, what looks like Kerry's finger is actually the top piece of a wooden frame that holds a mirror and is attached to the window. There is another mirror just like it behind the Marine, to the right of his elbow.