Free Republic

Below is a Senator Ted Cruz press release:Cruz on Iranian Prisoner Abedini: Unconscionable that Top American Diplomats Did Not Mention His Name WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement on the latest negative reports concerning Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran: “The recent press reports of the brutal treatment of Pastor Saeed Abedini in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison are deeply disturbing. But they are hardly surprising. Such abuse was inevitable after this American citizen, whose only crime is the peaceful practice of his Christian faith, was transferred to Iran’s equivalent of death row—not coincidentally on the...

Recently, Kim Jong Il, Yasser Arafat, Mohamar Khadafi, Hugo Chavez, and now Nelson have died. What did these men have in common? They were all evil almost all of them were viewed positively by the Democrat Party. This seems to indicate that the Democrat party also advocates the type of rule they imposed on their nations. If this is the case, then most certainly, five down and a lot more to go...

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) says his plan to nearly double the federal gas tax is needed because the tax hasn’t been raised in years and a decrease in fuel tax revenues has occurred due to the improved fuel efficiency of vehicles. … Blumenauer introduced a House bill this week that would raise the federal gas tax from 18.4 cents per gallon to 33.4¢ per gallon. The measure also would raise the federal tax on diesel fuel from 24.4 cents to 42.8 cents per gallon. …

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), speaking at a forum on women leadership on Wednesday, said immigration is a woman issue, because the male has either been deported or the father “is not present.” “I think that folks who have dealt with refugees and immigrant families see how much it impacts women, because so often many times, the male is not there. Either he’s been deported or the dad is not present. And immigration is really a woman issue. It’s a family-centered issue,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the forum sponsored by Politico. …

Trayvon Martin continues to be a subject of intense interest for the academic elite. The Princeton University Orchestra and the University Concert Jazz Ensemble is set to debut “The Ballad for Trayvon Martin” today, NJ.com reports. The goal of the music, according to its composer, noted jazz artist Anthony D.J. Branker, is to pay homage to victims of racial violence.

I just saw a video shot of the White House and the flag is being flown at half staff. I can only assume this is due to Mandela's death. I am curious if it customary to fly the flag at half staff for death of foreign leaders.

Ken Cuccenelli lost the 2013 bid for Governor of Virginia primarily because of Robert Sarvis’ campaign, funded in part by a Texas Obama supporter and campaign bundler, Joe Liemandt.

With President Obama’s approval ratings sinking thanks to the failing Obamacare rollout and the unpopular nuclear deal with Iran, Obama broke the media emergency glass to access the MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Matthews, who has compared Obama to Jesus and Henry V, and said that he was “the perfect American,” tossed Obama softball after softball, to which Obama gave stock answer after stock answer. Matthews began by asking Obama about young people not signing up for health insurance. Obama said they should. Obama then made this stunning statement: “Sometimes on your station, MSNBC, I've been blasted for being too willing...

LENEXA, Kansas - After catching a peeping Tom attempting to photograph her inside a dressing room on Monday, a topless woman chased the suspect through a Kohl's department store. Jeanne Ouelette told police she was trying on bras when she saw a hand holding a cell phone under the partition. “I followed him. I shouted, ‘Stop! Help me!’ I just screamed and chased him topless through the store,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t be chasing someone … I was just enraged. I was at a store in a very private place, and I was enraged and I wanted to...

State Senator Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, has introduced a preemption bill for knives that is very similar to the state's firearms preemption laws. If passed, Altman's bill would safeguard the right to carry a pocket knife across Florida. Sen. Thad Altman Sen. Thad Altman The "Uniform Knife and Weapons Act" would eliminate local knife ordinances, which differ across the state. SB 458 would invest only the state legislature with the power to enact knife laws, and allows for civil penalties against public officials or municipalities that fail to repeal their current knife regulations or seek to pass more

Lesson: Don’t punch someone who is holding a camera.In November, we told you about the woman who took a photo (left) of the man who allegedly punched her at Broad and Arch, a split second after he hit her in broad daylight. That same man was also accused of punching another woman within the same week at a SEPTA station at Broad and Erie. Now, police have a suspect in custody. Colt Younger, 26, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of simple assault and one count each of recklessly endangering another person and harassment. That’s his...

The College Football Czar: Week 15 Week fourteen in review: Actually, the biggest news of the week has just broken earlier the same day that this installment of picks is being posted, when the attorney general of Florida announced that Heisman trophy favorite Jameis Winston of Florida State will not be charged with sexual assault. Hopefully, this means that the freshman phenom truly is innocent, but all we really know is that the prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to support the charges. Alabama’s three-peat chances faded into the Great White North, as Auburn dug into the CFL...

WASHINGTON — In a sprawling complex of laboratories and futuristic gadgets in Golden, Colo., a supercomputer named Peregrine does a quadrillion calculations per second to help scientists figure out how to keep the lights on. Peregrine was turned on this year by the U.S. Energy Department. It has the world's largest "petascale" computing capability. It is the size of a Mack truck. Its job is to figure out how to cope with a risk from something the public generally thinks of as benign — renewable energy. Energy officials worry a lot these days about the stability of the massive patchwork...

Back in August, one of Manhattan’s swankiest and most celebrity-friendly hotels (Trump International) mistook one of America’s biggest celebrities (Duck Dynasty’s Jase Robertson) for a wino and shooed him from their lobby. The following day, in a story on the huge popularity of TV show Duck Dynasty, one of Manhattan’s most media-obsessed publications (The New York Post) wrote that a product (Duck Commander duck calls) featured on America’s most-watched TV cable show consists of a “whistle” used by duck hunters to “roust the feathered birds out of their hiding places.” “Their hiding places.” Got that? But, a duck that’s flying...

As we approach the somber anniversary of the mass shooting inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, Channel 3 Eyewitness News has made the decision to stay out of Newtown that day out of respect for the community. Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra made a plea on Face the State with Dennis House on Sunday for the media to stay away from Newtown on Dec. 14, the one-year anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook. "We truly need this time as a community to reflect, to be personal, to be with each other to continue that journey, that grief journey without the...

What is the worst problem in the world today? Might it be war, starvation, genocide, sectarian violence, murder, slaughter of babies in the womb? Any of these would be a rational answer. When Pope Francis was asked this question recently, he replied, “Youth unemployment.”

Some of you know that I write the Question and Answer Column for Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly. I like doing that as it imposes a kind of disciplined writing on me, where I must answer questions very briefly, in about 400 words or less.A question recently came in about a topic that I have not written much about here on the Blog. I’d like to reproduce the question and answer here in order to include the concept in my blog compendium and also to encourage you, if you do not read my column in the Sunday Visitor to know about...

Chris Matthews got his long-desired wish on Thursday, an exclusive interview with Barack Obama. The Hardball anchor didn´t exactly live up to the title of his show, wondering about Republican efforts to "make it difficult for minorities to vote" and questioning who was better, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden? Talking to the President at American University, Matthews read a question from Twitter: "What can we do to stop the GOP, the Republicans, from rigging the states, rigging the votes, state by state, to disenfranchise voters and destroy our democracy?" The host added, "Thirty six states right now led by Republican

A South Carolina school cancelled its annual Christmas toy drive after receiving threats from the American Humanist Association.Todd Starnes at FOX News reported: A South Carolina charter school has canceled its annual Christmas toy drive after a group of self-described humanists complained that the project violated the U.S. Constitution and accused them of bribing children to convert to Christianity.Renee Mathews, the principal of East Point Academy in West Columbia, S.C., said the annual Operation Christmas Child project was halted because the American Humanist Association threatened to sue the school.“We received a letter saying we had to cease and desist immediately...

President Obama acknowledged on Thursday that he lived with his Kenyan uncle for a brief period in the 1980s while preparing to attend Harvard Law School, contradicting a statement more than a year ago that the White House had no record of the two ever meeting. Their relationship came into question on Tuesday at the deportation hearing of his uncle, Onyango Obama, in Boston immigration court. His uncle had lived in the United States illegally since the 1970s and revealed in testimony for the first time that his famous nephew had stayed at his Cambridge apartment for about three weeks....

Another one? Already? Investigators say the mother of a Lunenburg [Massachusetts] teen whose home had racist graffiti sprayed on it last month is a “strong suspect” in the case.According to the search warrant, Isaac Phillip’s mother, Andrea Brazier, replied “OK” when an FBI agent said she was the one who spray painted graffiti on the house.“Most of the leads we have followed up throughout the investigation have led back towards the house,” said Lunenburg police Lt. Michael Luth. Luth confirms that the moonbat mom is a strong suspect. Court documents also claim Brazier made false statements and then asked them...

Over the last few weeks, a horrid phenomenon known as "the Knockout Game" has spread across the United States like wildfire. Generally speaking, it works like this: A group of teens or young adults single out an older individual. This unfortunate pedestrian is struck quickly and, before help can arrive, the attacking group runs off. Sometimes the victim is left with minor injuries, yet there are cases when an attack is fatal. In virtually all Knockout assaults, the so-called gamers have been black. Their targets, meanwhile, belong to another race. This pattern is so pervasive that many of those who...

So I am sitting a local sports pub/bar, you know the ones with all sorts of games and sports shows on big screens everywhere.... all of a sudden, I look up and see Barack Hussein Obama speaking LIVE from D.C. "What is going on?!" I asked my companion.... Sure enough, it is an extended statement from the worst occupant of the Oval Office in 100+ years, and it goes on and on and on....then the Sports Center talking heads continue to ramble about the death of Nelson Mandela. On a sports network. About sports news.

An elementary school in Frisco, Texas is believed to be the first in the state to violate “The Merry Christmas Law” after they banned Christmas trees and the colors red & green from an upcoming “winter” party. Boys and girls who attend the Nichols Elementary School “Winter Party” will not be able to make any reference to Christmas or any other religious holiday. Christmas trees are also banned—along with the colors red and green. … Ironically, the school is located in the district of state Rep. Pat Fallon, the author of a bill signed into law in June that codifies...

GOS, Nigeria – Entombed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in an upended tugboat for three days, Harrison Odjegba Okene begged God for a miracle. The Nigerian cook survived by breathing an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket. The other 11 seaman aboard the Jascon 4 died... It was a shock for the diver while he was down there looking for bodies, and we (in the control room) shot back when the hand grabbed him on the screen." Okene kept faith with the psalm he recited, that promises to "give thanks in your name, Lord," at a...

An American chemistry teacher was shot to death as he was jogging in Benghazi on Thursday, highlighting persistently tenuous security in the eastern Libyan city where the U.S. ambassador was killed last year. There were no credible claims of responsibility, but suspicion was likely to fall on Islamic militants active in Benghazi. It came five days after al-Qaida's American spokesman called upon Libyans to attack U.S. interests everywhere as revenge for U.S. special forces snatching an al-Qaida suspect off the streets of Tripoli in October and whisking him out of the country. The U.S. State Department identified the teacher as...

Newtown police responded rapidly to last December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and followed department procedures upon arrival, according to a report released Thursday by the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association. At the request of the Newtown Police Department, the chiefs association analyzed the police response and issued a nine-page report Thursday, a day after police released recordings of 911 calls from the morning of the shootings. The chiefs report said the first Newtown officers were on the scene less than three minutes after the initial 911 call, which came from a woman inside the building. The report said officers followed...

Dozens of area clergy members have signed a letter to the owner of the Washington Redskins and the commissioner of the National Football League, calling on the team to recognize that “words can cause great pain” and change its name.“The derogatory term ‘redskin’ offends many Native Americans and others in this country,” said the letter signed by 61 faith leaders. “This word, defined in the dictionary as a slur, should not be publicly marketed and celebrated in America, which is built on the ideals of respect and inclusion.”The missive marks the latest effort in the push to change the team’s...

Navy Launches A Drone From A Submerged SubmarineStephanie GaskellDefense OneDecember 5, 2013 The Naval Research Lab just launched a drone from a submerged submarine – giving a huge edge to the future of special operations. It took six years to develop and launch an all-electric, fuel cell-powered, folding-wing drone aircraft from a submerged submarine. The eXperimental Fuel Cell Unmanned Aerial System, or XFC UAS, was fired from the submarine's torpedo tube using a “Sea Robin” launch system, which is designed to fit within an empty Tomahawk launch canister used for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles. The XFC UAS uses an electrically...

MSNBC host Chris Matthews said President Obama “came amongst us” in an awestruck voice during a post-interview analysis on Hardball Thursday.Panelist David Corn said Obama appeared to remain frustrated with the media culture in Washington, but Matthews countered with Obama’s appearance on his program.“David Corn, you skeptic,” Matthews said. “He came to us today. He came amongst us.”Full exchange: DAVID CORN: I saw a president who remains frustrated with the political media culture that he has to work within, and that he’s really looking to rally people, students here–CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well, if that’s the case –CORN: – and supporters, and people within the...

War on Christmas? Not in the House, where members can now include holiday greetings in their constituent communications. This is a reversal of previous policy, in which "any form of a holiday greeting was banned," House Administration Committee Chairman Candice Miller, R-Mich.,

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup and start a conversation. You never know who you might meet in the Cafe. Glad you could...

Full Title: Analysts Predict Biggest Christmas Church Shopping Season Ever; Churches sharpen seasonal services to nab annual worshipers ANNAPOLIS, MD – Christine Eagen sits at the table in her neatly decorated suburban dining room with an open phone book, a wall calendar, a notepad and a laptop. She circles church listings in the phone book with a red sharpie, visits their Web sites on her laptop and pencils in their names on her calendar between November 25th and December 24th, all the while taking copious notes. “There are so many churches in the area, and we have such a limited...

New York City Mayor and gun control advocate Michael Bloomberg sure knows how to get his way. This week the NFL, after featuring anti-gun ads during the last two Super Bowls, it decided that an ad offering the opposite point of view in the upcoming Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2 was just too much. The NFL turned down an ad from a company called "Daniel Defense" which sells guns and outdoor gear that discussed "personal protection and fundamental rights." It featured a former Marine talking his family's safety, noting that he is ultimately responsible for their protection. Unlike Bloomberg’s...

As President Obama wrapped up his conversation with Chris Matthews at American University, he took a swipe at the partisan media for dividing the country and making compromise more difficult. Obama said being the Commander-in-Chief for so long “makes you humbler, as opposed to cockier,” and compared himself to Sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill for eternity with little success. He spoke of how enthusiastic young people encourage him and give him confidence, only for the media to take that enthusiasm and use it to divide people. “The American people are good and they are decent, and yes, sometimes

Thursday, December 05, 2013 Civilization and the Knockout Game Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The Jewish part of Crown Heights is a narrow island a handful of blocks in length and width. The names; Empire Boulevard, President Street, Eastern Parkway, Montgomery Street; reflect an old vanished grandeur. Like Constantinople after the sack, there are still traces of the old empire, but the faint images of men in top hats and tails walking up the brownstone steps, slightly tipsy after a party, have given way to car alarms and broken glass. There is no longer any romance...

Republican men in Congress “aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be” when it comes to running against female candidates and appealing to female voters, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “We’re trying to get them to be a little more sensitive,” Boehner said at his weekly Capitol press conference. “You look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican caucus. And some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” The Speaker was responding to a question about an article in Politico reporting that...

A firestorm has been started on Esquire’s The Politics Blog with a Tuesday opinion piece by Lt. Col. Robert Bateman titled “It’s time to talk about guns and the Supreme Court.” He not only takes SCOTUS and Justice Antonin Scalia to task for their Heller decision interpretation of the Second Amendment, but goes on to propose citizen disarmament edicts that dispense with false assurances given by some in the gun ban camp that nobody wants to take our guns away. Bateman does, big time, and makes no bones about it. In a way, he’s done us a service by giving...

Homeland Insecurity: The radical Muslim Brotherhood is often dismissed in the media as a distant threat. In fact, this sworn U.S. enemy isn't just overseas. It's inside the gates of the White House. At least six American Islamist activists who work closely with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism and the Center for Security Policy in Washington. As we list the worst of these subversives, bear in mind that the FBI in 2004 uncovered the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's strategic plan to infiltrate the U.S. government...

Borders , language and culture !

An Obamacare regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management in October treats the U.S. Congress—which employs more than 11,000 staffers and which spent $4,329,000,000 on its own operations and $3,454,253,000,000 to fund the full government in fiscal 2013—as a “small business.” OPM did this so that the Treasury can pay federal subsidies of up to $11,378 per year to help members of the House and Senate and their staff buy health-insurance plans in the Obamacare “Small Business Health Options Program” (SHOP) Marketplace set up for “small employers” in Washington, D.C. The regulation treats this federal tax subsidy paid by...

A group of young ballerinas rehearsing for “The Nutcracker” was kicked out of American University’s theatre so MSNBC host Chris Matthews could interview President Obama on Thursday. American University admitted they dumped Ballet Petite’s two final dress rehearsals so they could host MSNBC’s “Hardball College Tour.” Matthews will be presiding over a one-hour conversation with the man he’s likened to President Kennedy’s last brother, President Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. The ballet company had been scheduled to rehearse on Wednesday and Thursday in preparation for their opening performance on Sunday.

...“In that moment you become a whole new person,” the now 31-year-old says from the airlines’ offices in Enfield, just outside of Halifax. “You shut down and your survival instinct kicks in, and my thought was — how do we get all these people off the plane — and how do we survive this? “The whole time you are in the situation, in the moment, you are acting, but you are also thinking: ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’.... On Thursday morning Nicole Foran will be presented with the Star of Courage — a medal recognizing acts of “conspicuous courage...

Sonner then set about to create quarks to see if he could watch what happens when two are entangled with each other. Using an electric field, he was able to catch pairs of particles coming out of a vacuum environment with a few “transient” particles in it. - Once he caught the particles, he mapped them in terms of space-time (four-dimensional space). Note: gravity is believed to be the fifth dimension because it can bend space-time [5th Dimension?], as you can see in these images of galaxies below. - Sonner then tried to figure out what would happen in the...

Six Simple Ways to Nudge Conversions Some practical, foundational practices for putting the Pope's message of evangelization into actionDecember 03, 2013 09:46 EST By Carrie GressSister Maria Asterone Dodeka, a member of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara, chats with a woman outside St. Joseph Co-Cathedral in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of the New York borough of Brooklyn in June 2013. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)Recently after Mass, I started chatting with two elderly women who were comparing notes on how many children they have collectively who have left the Church. Ninety-two-year-old Mary lamented that she has...

by John UrbanTop Right NewsYesterday, we reported on how Barack Obama's drunken illegal alien Uncle Omar was handed amnesty by a corrupt immigration judge working for Eric Holder. Obama promised his uncle would get not special treatment. If you believe that, you might have believed what Obama claimed in 2011 -- that he never even met his uncle!That's right -- two years ago, right after Uncle Omar, a 21-year fugitive from a Federal deportation order, was arrested for DUI in Boston -- the White House claimed Obama had never met Uncle Omar, nor knew he was an illegal alien.The problem?...

<p>DAVID CORN: I saw a president who remains frustrated with the political-media culture that he has to work within, and that he's looking to rally people, students here, and supporters, and people within the media.</p> <p>CHRIS MATTHEWS: But David Corn, you skeptic. He came to us today. He came amongst us.</p>

The problem is that our understanding of both particle physics and the geometry of gravity is incomplete. “Having gone from basically philosophical understandings of why things fall to mathematical descriptions of how things accelerate down inclines from Galileo, to Kepler’s equations describing planetary motion to Newton’s formulation of the Laws of Physics, to Einstein’s formulations of relativity, we’ve been building and building a more comprehensive view of gravity. But we’re still not complete,” said Dr. Pamela Gay. “We know that there still needs to be some way to unite quantum mechanics and gravity and actually be able to write down...

A Stanford University Ph.D. student named Rahinah Ibrahim was prevented from boarding a flight at San Francisco International Airport in 2005, and was handcuffed and detained by the police. Ultimately, she was allowed to fly to Malaysia, her home country, but she has been unable to return to the United States because the State Department revoked her student visa. Summation: The woman's eldest daughter, who was born in the U.S. and is a U.S. citizen, was called as a witness for the trial. Unfortunately, she mysteriously found herself on the no-fly list as well, and wasn't able to board a...

The Senate Majority PAC is up with another big ad buy on behalf of Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), a top GOP target in 2014. The ad focuses on stressing Hagan's support of aspects of ObamaCare — without once mentioning the law by name — and criticizing her most likely opponent, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R), on healthcare issues. "North Carolina can count on Kay Hagan. She protects my Medicare and Social Security. She took on drug companies to lower the costs of prescriptions for seniors, voted to cut waste and fraud in Medicare, forced insurance companies to cover...