Free Republic

He socked it to her. Eliot Spitzer lusted after violence, a former hooker says in a new tell-all book — revealing in graphic detail how the love gov pinned her to a bed inside a posh, Murray Hill apartment and then gripped her by the neck until she feared for her safety. The violence was scripted by Spitzer, who wanted his hooker to follow a role-play dialogue in which she would pretend she had just taken a self-defense class. The kinky politician would then pretend to test her skills by announcing, “Well, then, let’s see if you learned anything,” and...

This is perhaps the most lucid, even-handed, and convincing examination to date of the threat that President Obama - and his potential reelection - poses to our republic. No one who reads I Am the Change will come away thinking this election is about the economy. In truth, this election pits America's founding principles against Obama's efforts to transform them. Obama noted as much in October 2008, declaring in a rare moment of candor, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Kesler cautions: "Those words mean this will be a different country when he's...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged to redouble his efforts to create a socialist system if re-elected in Sunday's election, saying the next six-year term would bring bigger changes. Since taking office in 1999, Chavez has increased the government's role in the economy and has nationalized private businesses including cement plants, banks and retail stores.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet. She spoke movingly about their early years--about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was “rusted out" and found his furniture “in a dumpster,” how they both came from families that had to “scrape by.” Her fairy tale--however well-delivered--was one great, big, colorful lie.

CNN was down double digits across the board in July. Compared to July 2011, the network is -20% in Total Viewers and -23% in A25-54 in Total Day. In primetime, CNN is down -23% in Total Viewers and -26% in the demographic. [Snip] Compared to the July 2011, Erin Burnett‘s 7pm hour — home last year to “John King USA” — is down -21% in both Total Viewers and younger viewers. “Piers Morgan Tonight” is down -18% in Total Viewers and -24% in A25-54 viewers. The 10pm edition of “Anderson Cooper 360″ is down -34% in Total Viewers and...

SteveDahlShow: Herman Cain and I have both been accused by Sharon Bialek. Hear my story on today's DahlCast. http://t.co/Wd9w9XnO

At the center of the allegations against Herman Cain is current Obama administration employee, who was also the spokeswoman for Janet Reno during the Elian Gonzales fiasco during the Clinton Presidency.  For those unfamiliar with Elian Gonzalez, he was a young boy who survived an ill-fated trip to America in November 1999. Twelve Cubans set out for Cuba in an unstable boat, but only Elian and one other person would make it to America alive. Elizabeth Gonzales was attempting to do something that has been done more than a thousand times since Castro's revolution that brought communism to the...

The Cain Encounter ... They hugged each other backstage in a full embrace like old friends. She grabbed his arm and whispered in his left ear. She kept talking as he bent to listen, and he kept saying “Uh, huh. Uh, huh.” Huh? “I don’t know if what she was giving him was a sucker punch, but he didn’t put his arm down while she was talking to him,” said the Sneed source. The “he”... is GOP presidential contender Herman Cain, who has been accused of sexual harassment by several women. The “she”... is Chicagoan Sharon Bialek, who held a...

In record numbers, they're struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock - if they're becoming parents at all. Young adults are the recession's lost generation in the U.S. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War Two, and they risk living in poverty more than others - nearly one in five. There are missed opportunities and dim prospects for a generation of mostly 20-somethings and 30-somethings coming of age in a prolonged period of joblessness.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's sacking of foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki has opened another chapter in the ongoing power struggle between the president and the supreme leader, Ali Khamene'i. Interpersonal as it may seem, this confrontation symbolizes the struggle between the Islamic Republic's old elites and Ahmadinejad's burgeoning patronage network, which challenges their authority. How has the president managed to build such a formidable power base? Who are the key members of his coterie, and will they enable their benefactor to outsmart the supreme leader to become Iran's effective ruler? ...

"This is my home. This is my castle. I am going to fight this damn river for my family," one weary home owner in Olive Branch, Ill., declared...

All is forgiven. So-called "Preppy Gun Moll" Afrika Owes was released in tears today on a controversial $25,000 cash bail bond posted by the Abyssinian Baptist Church -- the very house of worship that had crusaded against the drug gang Owes allegedly conspired with. snip Prosecutors say they caught Owes on a Rikers pay-phone tape taking a phone call from her jailed boyfriend -- the 137th Street gang's accused kingpin Jaquan Layne -- in which Layne instructed her to carry three firearms to his brother, Malik In the call, Layne allegedly gives the then-16-year-old prep schooler advice on surviving the...

As direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are set to resume in Washington on Thursday, Arutz 7 spoke on Sunday with investigative journalist David Bedein about his film "For the Sake of Nakba". The film, which details the connection between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and PA incitement, will be shown on Monday on Capitol Hill to members of Congress and other senior American officials. The film presents interviews with senior PA officials, school principals, as well as students and teachers who say that their goal is the lands of Israeli cities such as...

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., Aug. 11, 2010 – Waking up alone and bleeding on sun-baked granite after falling 50 feet face-first from the top of a mountain is where Air Force Academy Cadet David Garay found himself June 2, 1997, only one day after his 19th birthday. Garay, now a major, lived through the fall and recovered, but the incident changed the course of his life forever. "I rarely think about it at all now," said Garay, executive officer for the Air Armament Center commander here. "But for the first five years, I thought about it all the time...

California boasts some of the toughest standards in the nation for boosting the use of renewable power. Getting utilities to meet those mandates is proving to be even tougher. State law requires the Golden State's three large investor-owned utilities to procure 20% of their retail electricity sales from clean sources by the end of 2010. But with less than six months left to meet that requirement, even government watchdogs don't expect the power companies to make it. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. are likely to end this year with a...

One of the great myths of the left is that socialism is a movement of the people, the working classes, or the poor. In fact -- as Frederick Hayek pointed out long ago -- all socialist movements are the creation of intellectual elites, liberally pollinated by millionaires. Karl Marx was the kept intellectual of factory owner Frederick Engels; Bill Ayers, a leader of the terrorist cult called the Weatherman, was a scion of the American upper class; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, is a multi-millionairess; Michael Moore, leftwing propagandist, is a multi-millionaire who has profited handsomely from the...

NEW YORK – For cash-strapped states counting on federal stimulus money, the news was a stunning blow: A deficit-weary Congress had rejected billions in additional aid, forcing lawmakers into a mad scramble to balance their budgets. .. many governors are proposing to make up for the shortfall with tax increases, cuts in essential services .. layoffs of thousands of public employees. ... California faces a whopping $19 billion deficit — more than 20 percent of the state's total budget — despite deep cuts .. The federal stimulus program enacted last year is set to expire in December. Much of the...

Charlotte Church today showed signs of her strain at being a single mother bringing up two little ones. Charlotte, 24, struggled with a host of bags, toys and bottles as she took her two children out for the day. Meanwhile her estranged fiancé, peramatanned Gavin Henson, has been out living it up, looking relaxed and care-free.

SNIPPET: "A bomb has exploded outside the Athens stock exchange, slightly injuring a female passer-by and damaging the building, police say. The bomb - which set fire to several cars - was hidden in a stolen van. Another bomb went off outside a government building in Thessaloniki, causing minor damage and no injuries. The blasts may be the work of a Greek extremists' group, Revolutionary Struggle, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens. Earlier this year the group claimed responsibility for two bombs aimed at the American Citibank group. Flying glass A warning of the Athens explosion was telephoned to...