Free Republic

Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich appears intent on keeping high-flying Republicans grounded in reality. From Politico.com: Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich “We are not going to deport 11 million people,” Gingrich said Thursday as he kicked off his first forum on Latino issues. “There has to be some zone between deportation and amnesty.” A possible presidential candidate, Gingrich stressed that his target of establishing an entirely legal work force is “not a call for amnesty.” Rather, he said, it’s about applying common sense to the immigration debacle. “Dos y dos son cuatro” (two plus two equals four), he...

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's big speech... leaves U.S. policymakers off the hook and takes their focus further away from the free-market reforms within their control to make -- the policy changes that would do much more to save what's left of the U.S. economy than anything China might do. Bernanke would have been more constructive taking direct and sustained aim at U.S. policymakers in both parties -- it's their bad policy moves and avoidance of tough decisions over more than 30 years that's responsible for America's economic underperformance. The metaphor that comes to mind is of an overweight runner blaming...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writes an utterly unconvincing retort to charges of thuggery in her threats to health insurance companies, in today's Wall Street Journal. What is amazing about this display is that she doesn't use the space provided to defend her actions, but to attack and demonize the private health care insurance industry. Sebelius's writing is entirely unconvincing and riddled with faulty logic. Sebelius: "Over the past decade, Americans have seen what happens when insurance companies have free rein" Currently insurance companies are regulated by both state and federal agencies. Nearly 50% of every healthcare dollar...

Throw them out there....see what if he thinks.... It kind of looks like a Jester's hat (sort of intentional).... Click the image to see the larger version. The Looking Spoon is a conservative humor/satire/art/commentary blog, visit www.thelookingspoon.com to see more posts and art

CHICAGO – Rod Blagojevich says the prosecution in his corruption trial proved that he did nothing wrong. He spoke after his defense rested Wednesday without calling any witnesses — including the ousted Illinois governor himself. Blagojevich says the government showed "that I never took a corrupt dollar, not a corrupt dime, not a corrupt nickel, not a corrupt penny."

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — People in the world's most populous Muslim nation have been facing Africa — not Mecca — while praying. Indonesia's highest Islamic body acknowledged Monday it made a mistake when issuing an edict in March saying the holy city in Saudi Arabia was to the country's west. It has since asked followers to shift direction slightly northward during their daily prayers. "After a thorough study with some cosmography and astronomy experts, we learned they've been facing southern Somalia and Kenya," said Ma'ruf Amin, a prominent cleric of the Indonesian Ulema Council, or MUI. "We've revised it now...

J Street mixes its views on Israel with domestic party politics, and now, before midterm elections this is not the time to escalate partisan rhetoric around a two-state solution. J Street, the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby, ran its first television commercial last week in the United States. Watching the ad online (it can be viewed via a link on my own organization's website, www.rethinkme.org) confirmed my worst suspicions about this new organization, which likes to portray itself as the "real voice" of the mainstream American Jewish community. The commercial makes J Street's particular bias quite obvious. It begins with overt political...

So the Obama administration seems to believe. It has not, at least in my memory, been struck by anything the P.A. has done or said that is inimical to negotiations and to peace. While it commands this and then that from Israel just to get the Palestinians to sit down and talk, the talking will not be between the parties at all but a three-way process with George Mitchell shuttling between Ramallah and Jerusalem and back. If I were Bibi, I wouldn’t consent to this for a moment since it carries the old 20th century Arab habit of pretense that...

When Patrick Morrison left hospital after having his right foot amputated, he thought the sense of imbalance he felt would vanish once he got used to his newly fitted artificial foot. But it was not until five months later, when he took off the protective socks, that he realised he had been given two left feet. A prosthetic limb specialist had fitted an artificial left foot to his right leg - and failed to spot his mistake during two further check-ups. The foot was also too big - made to fit a size nine shoe rather than a size eight.

Friday January 29, 2010 Judge Gives Miller 30 Days to Transfer Daughter to Former Lesbian Lover or Face Arrest By Matthew Cullinan HoffmanRUTLAND, VERMONT, January 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ex-Lesbian Lisa Miller has been given 30 days to transfer custody of her daughter to her former lesbian partner, or possibly face criminal penalties.Although Vermont Judge Richard Cohen has so far refused to issue an arrest warrant for Miller, he has set a deadline of February 23rd for the transfer to take place.If Miller does not appear during that time, Cohen said on January 22, "I will consider all possible...

BARACK OBAMA’S most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond. The governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia were once billed as the marquee events of Election Day 2009 —...

http://www.eastidahonews.com/podcasts/PA/PAHr2_Friday10022009.mp3 East Idaho News Broadcast - Newstalk 690 and 1260 - Probing America with Mark and Mel. This audio explains that Rham Emmanuel is over all of Obama's Czars and describes civil internships in the armed forces. 1. Paul Brown (rep from Georgia), is trying to bring attention to Obama's Civilian Corp as it is exactly what Hitler did. (and more...) 2. Rahm Emmanuel will be over this paramilitary civilian corp. Rahm's & Ezekiel's father was a member of IRGEN & STIRNGAIN assasins - responsible for terrorism and slaughter of the innocent. 3. An anonymous Navy Captain of 30 years...

Mccain's abstain "makes sense" to me, given that he's the de facto amnesty republican. But what's Vitter's excuse? He also had an amendment to defund ACORN, did he not? I say defeat them all in the primaries for their support of this criminal enterprise.

Continental Airlines is apologizing for sending a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl flying alone to New Jersey instead of Ohio. Jonathan Kamens says he brought his daughter, Miriam, to Logan International Airport in Boston on Sunday. She was to fly to Cleveland to visit her grandparents. He tells WBZ-TV that shortly after the plane landed in Ohio, his father-in-law called saying she had not arrived. Kamens says for 45 minutes no one could tell him where his daughter was, setting off a panic among the family. She was finally located unharmed in Newark, N.J. The airline says the error was caused by...

MONDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Climate change isn't only bad for the Earth, it may be bad for your health -- especially if you have allergies or asthma. Global warming is making pollen seasons last longer, creating more ozone in the air, and even expanding the areas where insects flourish, putting more people with bee allergies at greater risk, experts say. [snip] Those changes will mean more people with allergies and asthma will suffer.

THE decision to ban Christian symbols in the Royal North Shore Hospital chapel could incite rage against other faiths, some religious leaders fear. The removal of religious images was ordered when the hospital gave Muslims a prayer space inside the chapel. But last night Islamic leaders criticised the move and feared a backlash. Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Society, said Muslims would not be offended to use a multi-faith chapel and see images of the cross. From 1968 the chapel displayed a cross at the altar and a Bible was on-hand.

A Jacksonville physician caught traveling to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex told police his explicit online chats with teenage girls revealed their stupidity and America’s immorality. Irfan Nawaz, 32, said he chatted with who he thought were eight to 10 teenage girls and laughed to himself about how stupid and promiscuous they were, according to his 2008 confession played in court Friday...

A wide-ranging investigation has been launched into allegations that a well-known Pueblo resident has molested many boys over the years, including most recently when he was the manager for Sen. John McCain's presidential-campaign office in Pueblo. Under investigation is Jeffrey Claude Bartleson, 52, who was arrested Jan. 29 and then re-arrested Wednesday after a campaign worker in the McCain office told police she believed Bartleson molested one of her sons. Sgt. Brett Wilson, who heads the Pueblo Police Department's special victims unit, said today that there are "several active investigations" involving Bartleson.

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A convicted sex offender pleaded guilty Monday to raping a 6-year-old boy at a Massachusetts public library last year while he was on probation. Corey Deen Saunders, 27, entered the plea Monday to child rape and related charges. He was arrested Jan. 30, 2008, after luring the boy to the magazine stacks in the New Bedford library while the child's mother worked on a computer just a few feet away. At a court hearing last year, prosecutors played a videotaped interview in which the boy told a child welfare official the assault was like being attacked...

For urinating on the Alamo in 1982, metal music madman Ozzy Osbourne was banned from performing in San Antonio for two decades. For having sex with a 14-year-old San Antonio girl in one of the Alamo’s bathrooms, Charles Wayne Carmony, 43,of Kentucky found out Friday that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Carmony, a convicted sex offender who was handed probation sentences for having sex with another 14-year-old girl there, apologized for lying to the San Antonio girl and her family while carrying on a relationship with her. Over the course of at least three years,...