Free Republic

The day before McCain surprised the nation with his pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate, I had a ‘discussion’ with a woman I have known for many years. Although well into the “gifted” range (so called “genius“ ) she has a penchant for choosing political losers! She is a walking talking example that IQ and common sense do not necessarily follow the same ark. I had once argued, that if I were President, I would put her on my staff as a reverse barometer; I would do the opposite of whatever course of action she would suggest I...

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

Hooray! The National Enquirer has published photos of former political person John Edwards with a baby. The baby is almost certainly made up in part of DNA he left in a woman named Rielle Hunter, a former Edwards staffer who now spends her time cashing checks and hiding in hotels and denying everything to the media (until Good Morning America finally books her!). So now would be a perfect time for, like, established print media to cover this story, right? Anyone? Ha, no, they are all too embarrassed. Once again, it's up to the internet! The story is still sneaking...

There’s been a lot of talk lately that former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) will have some sort of role in the Obama administration, if there is one. A few months ago, Edwards, the Democratic Party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate, seemed to pull himself out of the VP race. But then, a couple of weeks ago, Edwards quietly put himself back in, telling National Public Radio, “I’m prepared to seriously consider anything, anything [Obama] asks me to do for our country.” “Anything” could, of course, mean running for vice president. But Edwards has done that before, and he didn’t exactly put...

Edwards, Rielle Hunter, Busted: HuffPo 's Sam Stein, who got the story rolling, appears to be vindicated. ... P.S.: Always trust content from kausfiles! Never trust content from Jerome Armstrong. ... P.P.S.: Will this be the first presidential-contender level scandal to occur completely in the undernews, without ever being reported in the cautious, respectable MSM? That's always seemed an interesting theoretical possibility--a prominent politician just disappears from the scene, after blogs and tabloids dig up dirt on him, but nobody who relies on the Times, Post, network news or Mark Halperin has the faintest idea why. If this is that...

BOSTIC - For a man with "Honest Abe" as his nickname, there are plenty of Abraham Lincoln stories that may be anything but. Lincoln did not compose the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. No one really knows whether the store clerk Lincoln walked six miles to return 3 cents he overcharged. And his wife wasn't a Confederate spy. Now this small town in Western North Carolina is pressing its own claim: Lincoln was a Tar Heel. According to a tale that locals swear is true: The 16th president of the United States wasn't born in Kentucky, as...

How debt led one man to an American nightmare Leon Davis Jr. bought a house he could not afford. What followed was almost unimaginable. By Thomas Lake, Times Staff Writer Published February 10, 2008 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In January 2007, Leon Davis Jr. wrote on his blog, "I have hurt people in the past and I'm sorry for it! So 2007 and on I will live my life the right way, and that's keeping it real with my family and friends!" In December 2007, he was accused of killing five people over the course of six days in Polk County. Leon Davis...

PHILADELPHIA POLICE have charged a suspect in the horrifying case of Edna, the little brown dog held for ransom in a telephoned extortion attempt last fall. The accused, a 15-year-old Nicetown boy, was arrested and taken into custody in the early morning of Dec. 30. Because he is a juvenile, his name is being withheld by police. He faces felony charges of extortion, criminal conspiracy and criminal mischief, in addition to charges of harassment and terroristic threats.

APOPKA, Fla. -- A Central Florida man is accused of pouring hot cooking oil on a 17-month-old and using a hair dryer to burn his skin off because the toddler apparently would not stop crying and whining. Police said Darlanne Toussaint was charged with felony attempted murder on suspicion he abused his girlfriend's son in an Apopka apartment building Thursday. The mother of the child, Marlita S. Stokes, 23, was arrested on Friday and faces charges of child neglect and providing false information to police.

There's an old maxim that if Napoleon had been struck by a cannonball on his way to Moscow, he would be remembered as an unrivaled military genius and liberator. But Napoleon overstayed history's welcome and was treated harshly for it, first by the Russians and Mother Nature, then by his own people and, ultimately, by historians. In this and other respects, Karl Rove strikes me as a Napoleonic figure. He won an impressive string of campaigns. He dreamed of erecting a new political order on the ashes of the old. He'd look awfully dashing in one of those bicorn hats....

Rove’s legacy will be the subject of much debate, but this much would seem to be clear - Karl Rove was better at winning office than holding onto it. Be it the infamous, “Mission Accomplished” sign, the President’s disastrous handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, the failed attempt at overhauling Social Security, the suicidal illegal immigration debate, or the tone-deaf communications effort that allowed the War in Iraq to be painted as a quagmire, and a booming economy to be seen as weak, Rove’s forte was clearly not in governance.

HOUSTON -- A convicted killer's mother took the stand in the punishment phase of her son's trial and begged the jury to spare his life, KPRC Local 2 reported. Dexter Johnson, 19, was found guilty of the capital murder of Maria Sally Aparece, 23, on June 13 Her boyfriend, Huy Ngo, 17, was also killed in the crime spree last summer. Johnson's mother told the jury that her son's father was never a part of his life. She said her boyfriends verbally and physically abused her son and two daughters.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - No charges will be filed in the case of a 9-year-old boy who fatally stabbed a 2-year-old girl in a Texas home where a teen-ager was babysitting 12 children, Dallas police said on Tuesday after an investigation. The stabbing occurred on December 22 in a home in southeast Dallas where a 15-year-old was left to supervise at least 10 siblings and 2 other children, including the victim. The toddler, Damya Jefferson, was stabbed twice in the chest by a 9-year-old boy who lived at the house, according to published reports. No charges will be filed against the...

Republicans have been promising they would ratchet up the rhetoric against Democrats in the final two weeks of the fall campaign, and the man President Bush called "The Architect" of his political campaigns offered a preview of what they have in mind on Friday night. Appearing in support of embattled GOP Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), Karl Rove offered biting jibes against House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), took a shot at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and asserted that Democratic policies would leave the country weaker. "You can't say I want to win the war but not be...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil fell 3 percent to $61 a barrel on Monday as healthy fuel inventories in top consumer the United States countered plans by OPEC members Nigeria and Venezuela to trim output. U.S. crude settled down $1.88 at $61.03 a barrel, after dipping as low as $60.90 after BP said it had restarted production at the Lisburne oil field in Alaska over the weekend. London Brent dropped $2.03 to $60.45. BP shut the 30,000 barrel per day (bpd) field last week after discovering a gas leak in a pipeline. The oil major has been restoring output at...

HUSAYBA — Cpl. Jamie L. Emerson is one lucky 'Bastard.' The 22-year-old assigned to the 'Betio Bastards' of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment escaped death when an enemy bullet ripped through his Kevlar helmet Aug. 1 in Husayba, an area on the Euphrates River near the Syrian border. “Everybody’s been calling me ‘lucky,’” said Emerson, a mortarman with Regimental Combat Team 5. The battalion earned the nickname 'Betio Bastards' during a bloody World War II battle at Tarawa, a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean where hardened Japanese marines defended the island of Betio with more than 5,000 troops....

RADICAL Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir yesterday said the Bali bombing victims were destined to die by God and their families should now convert to Islam. He also called on Prime Minister John Howard to become a Muslim or burn in hell. Mr Howard has written to Indonesia's president to express disgust at Bashir. Just 24 hours after being released from prison for his part in the 2002 bombings, Bashir said becoming Muslims would give the bereaved relatives "salvation and peace". "For the Bali bomb families, those who are non-Muslims, my suggestion is just convert to Islam so they can...

This morning's newspaper informs us that we have lost 2,493 of our best and bravest young men and women serving this United States in Iraq. I asked a member of my staff to check when we lost 2,000 soldiers, and the date was October 25 of last year. It appears that in a very short period of time, we will pass the 2,500 mark. At the time that we recorded the 2,000th military death in Iraq, I asked, along with other Senators, for a moment of silence on the floor of the U.S. Senate to acknowledge their great contribution to...

It seems to a modern consensus that Oliver Cromwell was a puritanical tyrant, no better than the king he replaced? I’m wondering if this has always been the view on Cromwell, or is it just a modern liberal revision of history? What was Cromwell’s real legacy? Part of me wonders if Cromwell has been vilified unfairly by the left in much the same way Franco has been. (A person I believe was saving his nation from International Communism – which for shame some of my countrymen fought alongside) One of the problems that faced the parliamentarians once the king was...

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is telling his followers that the levees in New Orleans may have been deliberately "blown up" to kill the city's black population. The influential preacher was in Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday, where he detailed his Hurricane Katrina conspiracy theory. "I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach," Farrakhan explained. "It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry." Farrakhan didn't say who he thought was behind the plot to blow up New Orleans'...

Pizza billboard causes a stir Decision on appropriateness of billboard which features US president being made today 8 August 2005 A decision is due to be made today whether a billboard labelling President Bush an 'evil bastard' is appropriate. The Hell Pizza billboards have been erected around Auckland and Wellington. Half of the poster is taken up with a photo of the president and the other half has the phrase 'Hell: Too Good For Some Evil Bastards.' Outdoor Advertising New Zealand is reviewing who is behind the boards and whether the Advertising Standards Authority needs to become involved. Hell's media...

BERLIN - The last time he faced the prospect of electoral defeat, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder turned President Bush's foreign policy into a campaign rally cry, plunging German and American relations to their lowest point since the end of World War II. As Mr. Schroder visits Washington Monday, he is once again politically embattled, with his weakened Social Democrats (SPD) facing an emboldened Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in early elections this September. And he will no doubt use Mr. Bush to improve his voter support. But this time, analysts say, Schroder won't be driving the anti-Bush bandwagon he rode to victory...

Felos News Conference Now

Sidney Blumenthal Thursday January 27, 2005 The Guardian Bush will not admit that his troops are too exhausted to sustain his vengeful global missions The most penetrating critique of the realism informing President Bush's second inaugural address, a trumpet call of imperial ambition, was made one month before it was delivered, by Lt Gen James Helmly, chief of the US Army Reserve. In an internal memorandum, he described "the Army Reserve's inability under current policies, procedures and practices ... to meet mission requirements associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. The Army Reserve is additionally in grave danger of...

MONTGOMERY -- Bobby Frank Cherry, convicted of killing four black girls in a racially motivated bombing of a Birmingham church in 1963, died Thursday in prison. He was 74. Cherry died at about 3:30 p.m. in the hospital unit at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery,

NEW YORK - The rap artist O.D.B., who lived a life as wild as his lyrics, collapsed and died inside a recording studio Saturday, his record label said. He was 35. O.D.B. had complained of chest pains before collapsing at the Manhattan studio, according to a statement from Roc-a-Fella records. O.D.B., also known as Ol' Dirty Bastard, Dirt McGirt or his legal name of Russell Jones, was a founding member of the hit rap group the Wu-Tang Clan in the early 1990s. With his offbeat, unorthodox delivery, he segued into a successful solo career and released several hit singles. But...

Let's stop refighting the Vietnam War on the campaign trail and refight it where it'll do some good: in Vietnam. That's right, let's stop mucking around and just ... reinvade Vietnam. I don't know if you've been listening lately, but it turns out we're pretty obsessed with the place. People don't talk this much about Vietnam even in Vietnam. I feel bad for Iraq. Usually when a war gets that little attention, it involves Africans. We Americans need to work out our Vietnam "issues," and like all nuanced, complicated questions, there's really just one simple answer, and it drops from...

Caller to Laura Ingraham described a joke by Bill Maher on last nights show about the "Iraqi Head-Collecting Service" being backed-up.

FLASH: Kerry campaign will announce Thursday it has raised $175 million, breaking the record that George W. Bush set in 2000 of more than $130 million...

<p>New York Giants second-round draft pick Chris Snee and coach Tom Coughlin's daughter had a child last fall, the team disclosed hours after picking the Boston College guard.</p> <p>Snee and Katie Coughlin are not married, but together they are raising the boy, Dylan.</p>

Jesse jackson has been caught up in a new love-child scandal -- two years after The ENQUIRER revealed he'd fathered a baby girl with a former staffer. An unmarried Chicago woman has just given birth to a baby girl. Sources say Jesse's son Yusef is the father -- and he's agreed to take a paternity test, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. The ENQUIRER is withholding the names of the woman and the baby. Back in January 2001, The ENQUIRER revealed exclusively that Jesse Jackson, then 59, had a long-term extramarital affair with 39-year-old Rainbow Coalition staffer Karin Stanford that resulted...

Taxpayers wanted, dead or alive Ivy Main With the nation's anti-tax fervor at a high pitch, the time is ripe to consider tax relief for freelance newspaper columnists. Our nation has a long tradition of writers offering their opinions cheaply to anyone who will print them, but these people are under enormous financial pressure as newspapers cut their pay rates. Without tax relief, the American dream of becoming an obnoxious pundit will be out of reach of all but large corporate opinion writers. Are you persuaded? If you are, I have a lot of other tax breaks I'd like to...

An Open Letter to President Jacques Chiraq Dear Jack, I'm an American. And as an American, there are some things I want to get off my chest. Colin Powell would probably make this sound all nice and fancy, but I'm not a diplomat, as the next few paragraphs will make painfully clear to you. I don't like you very much, Jack. I don't like you, your government or your country. I think as allies go you make a passable enemy. You sure as shootin' could never be mistaken as a friend. Not to put a fine point on it, you...

Parrish says 'bastards' are 8 or 9 officials 'I can't even promise it won't happen again,' Parrish saysAfter apologizing to U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci and the House of Commons last week for a "heat of the moment" outburst in which she referred to Americans as "those bastards," Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish told a TV audience last night that the remark "obviously is something that I believe in," but that next time she'll be "more specific" in aiming her words at "eight or nine" individual Americans. When Comedy Network talk show host Mike Bullard suggested the name of U.S. President George...

Mississauga MP on U.S.: 'Hate those bastards' Sheldon Alberts, Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief National Post Thursday, February 27, 2003 ADVERTISEMENT OTTAWA - The Liberal government faced new accusations of anti-Americanism yesterday after an MP who is an outspoken critic of George W. Bush said she hated Americans and called them "bastards" intent on going to war with Iraq. Carolyn Parrish, the Liberal MP for Mississauga Centre, later issued a statement apologizing for the comments, which came on a day when Jean Chrétien spoke to the U.S. President in an effort to reach a United Nations compromise in the Iraqi crisis....

Just starting an after action report. Here are a few highlights of the evening so far. I'm sure there will be more additions tonight and tomorrow but most of our folks are still socializing at an undisclosed location...with beer.

I was watching Fox and Friends this morning, and they said that Michael Jackson is moving next door to Rush Limbaugh! Can anybody confirm this?

There have been the usual number of year-end threads, some vanity, some taken from the media, regarding the events, and people of 2002..but it's time for your nominations for THE BEST THREAD OF 2002......

PIKEVILLE, Ky. - Descendants of one of the nation's most famous pairs of feuding families, the Hatfields and McCoys, will face off in court to settle a dispute over access to a cemetery where three slain boys were buried. ``I really hate that we have to go to the court system to settle this,'' said Bo McCoy of Waycross, Ga., a plaintiff in the lawsuit against a Hatfield descendant who blocked access to the family cemetery. ``We wanted to be gentlemen about it,'' McCoy said. ``We felt like we had no other choice.'' The cemetery, which holds remains of three...

BOOK CHARGES: HILLARY CALLED AIDE ‘JEW BASTARD’ **World Exclusive** **Contains Graphic Description** Hillary Clinton has angered Jewish voters in New York and nationally with her controversial support of a Palestinian State, and her startling embrace of Yasser Arafat’s wife. Questions remain, and the debate intensifies, as to whether she can win the crucial Jewish vote in New York as she wages a neck-and-neck battle with Congressman Rick Lazio, who has made the Jewish question a campaign issue. Now, as the race comes down to the wire, a new book is set to explore the first lady’s feelings about Jews and...

  A Father's Hate Boy Whose Dad Injected Him With HIV Struggles to Live a Normal Life By Bryan Robinson Nov. 19 — Although they are the victims, Jennifer Jackson and her son feel like they are the ones in prison. Known in court papers as "BSJ," Jackson's son is suffering from full-blown AIDS because his father, Brian Stewart, injected him with HIV-tainted blood in 1992 when the boy was 11 months old. Stewart was convicted in December 1998 of first-degree assault for the crime. Stewart was a phlebotomist — a hospital technician who draws blood — in Columbia, Mo....

<p>Oh, dear. A Pew Research survey released yesterday stated that President Clinton "stands out for his extraordinarily low credibility." His ratings are lower than they were in the spring of 1998, when the Monica Lewinsky matter was in full bloom.</p>