Free Republic

Texas Republican Senate candidate Steve Stockman has nowhere near the millions of dollars his GOP opponent Sen. John Cornyn has, but the tea party congressman has a novel fundraising ploy: selling Obama “barf bags.” Stockman unveiled the bags Tuesday on his website alongside a letter that touts the candidate as a “proud, principled conservative Tea Party Republican” who has spent “the last few years defeating liberals by helping train and launch the Tea Party.” Every $10 donation comes with one bag printed with an image of the president and a tagline that reads, “Socialism Makes Me SICK!”

OAKLAND, Calif. — The weekly meetings of Mouthing Off!, a group for students at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, always start the same way. Members take turns going around the room saying their names and the personal pronouns they want others to use when referring to them — she, he or something else. It’s an exercise that might seem superfluous given that Mills, a small and leafy liberal arts school historically referred to as the Vassar of the West, only admits women as undergraduates. Yet increasingly, the “shes” and “hers” that dominate...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are finalizing a deal to avert a debt default and reopen the government, capping a frantic day that had Washington bracing for an economic crisis of its own making. The deal is essentially done, sources say, as aides for the two leaders finish drafting the legislative language Tuesday night.

More than four decades ago, Mick Jagger claimed that he couldn’t imagine jumping around a stage and singing rock and roll when he was thirty. If things didn’t turn out quite like he imagined they might, Jagger — who turns 70 on July 26 — has certainly beaten the odds. Not only has rock music not cut him down as it has far too many others, it’s kept him young. An impossibly agile performer, Jagger — as these clips, presented in chronological order, attest — still has most of the moves he displayed when he first took the stage with...

Former President George W. Bush is expected to make a speech next week on how immigration reform is good for the country, the Dallas Morning News reports. Bush will speak after a citizenship ceremony at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas on Wednesday followed by a panel discussion titled “What Immigrants Contribute.” Although it is not clear whether Bush will throw his support behind the immigration bill making its way through Congress, he has supported reform in the past. While he was president Congress defeated an immigration reform overhaul Bush supported and the Bush center has published several...

If ever I thought myself objective and unbiased, the George Zimmerman trial is definitely not that moment. So let's cut to the chase. Any attorney, jury member, judge or white person in that courtroom is not going to understand Rachel Jeantel. And I don't expect them to. In fact, I certainly, like my fellow writer Rachel Samara, understand why white people wouldn't like Rachel. She's hard. She's black. And your assumptions about her background and lack of education make you feel like you are better, somehow. That her testimony, no matter how powerful and impactful it may be to this...

When momentous events happen like the election of a new president, White Bear Lake resident Laurie Wenker makes sure to get two copies of that day's newspaper to tuck away in memory boxes for her teenage daughters. She did just that -- and more Tuesday. Wenker and daughters Eleanor, 16, and Lillian, 13, joined a crowd of an estimated 6,000 people who gathered at the state Capitol to witness Gov. Mark Dayton sign a bill legalizing same-sex marriages in Minnesota. "I wanted my kids to experience history, to take in and breathe in the equality in the air," Wenker said.

Control of a Baltimore prison was effectively handed over to a group of gang member inmates who seduced and bribed the female guards. Federal prosecutors say 13 female correctional officers, seven inmates and five others with gang ties have been charged with plotting to smuggle drugs, cellphones and other contraband into the Baltimore jail and other corrections facilities. An indictment unsealed Tuesday said the ring also involved sex between inmates and guards that led to four of the officers becoming pregnant by Tavon White, leader of a jailhouse gang called the Black Guerrilla Family. He is held at the Baltimore...

In some ways, today's Supreme Court arguments over California's proposition 8 were overshadowed by the decision of several Democratic senators from red or purple states to openly and active support marriage equality. Actually, even that pales in comparison to Richard Land, the key Southern Baptist political evangelist, who just said, basically, "nevermind," when it comes to the next generation of evangelicals being uncomfortable about gay rights. (To be sure, he still opposes gay rights, still thinks that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, and believes that anti-gay leaders are being ostracized from polite society.) On that last part, he's kind...

There are two ways to look at the election of Pope Francis. He takes the name of the famous saint, whose life was defined by a vision in which he was commanded by a crucifix to “rebuild my Church, which is in ruins.” That name, combined with rumors that Cardinal Bergoglio impressed his fellow Cardinals at preconclave meetings with his willingness to clean up the Curia, may be a signal that reform is on the way. His choice of name may also signal an affiliation with the Jesuit saint Francis Xavier, an exemplary evangelist and missionary. Cardinal Bergoglio is known...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his congratulations message to the new Pope Francis I, President Obama once again cited his “work with Pope Benedict XVI.” The phrase is reminiscent of his message to Pope Emeritus Benedict upon his resignation, when he wrote, “I have appreciated our work together over these last four years.” President Obama, who opposes the Catholic Church's position on a host of social issues and has defunded Catholic agencies over their opposition to abortion, did not specify what this work might be. His message to the new pope called Pope Francis “a champion of...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-ive-become-more-humble_704715.html Obama: I've 'Become More Humble' 2:08 PM, Feb 26, 2013 • By DANIEL HALPER President Barack Obama admitted today in a Virginia speech that he's "become more humble": "But in order for us to make that happen I'm going to need you. You know, the one thing about being president is, after four years, you get pretty humble. You'd think maybe you wouldn't but actually you become more humble--you realize what you don't know," said Obama.

Every day for the past 22 years, California's background checks have stopped about a dozen felons, mentally ill people and others from buying guns. When prospective gun buyers stride into California gun stores such as Ron Kennedy's Canyon Sports in Martinez, they must swipe their driver's licenses or state IDs. That sets off a review process that runs their names not only through the same FBI criminal database other states use but also almost 20 other sources, from mental health records to DMV data. It's a check more rigorous than any other state's. California is also one of only two...

.... Fortunately, despite worries about a warming planet, no one is predicting the end of snow anytime soon. Some cold places will see more snow, because warmer air can carry more moisture. In the Northern Hemisphere, snow coverage this past December was the greatest since records began in 1966, Rutgers University’s Global Snow Lab reported. But Dr. David Robinson, a climatologist at Rutgers, warns that year-to-year fluctuations and regional differences can deceive casual observers. In general, he says, there has been an “overall decline in snowfall.” Other studies echo that conclusion. The United States Global Change Research Program’s recently released...

The NRA executive vice president has just proposed a plan that many predicted the NRA would come up with: The solution to guns is more guns. Liberal commentators are already lambasting it, but I think the news that the NRA is even discussing the matter is a positive sign. They have put a proposal on the table, and that implies that there is a problem. What was really worrying about Wayne LaPierre's remarks was the return of a very old trope — blaming Hollywood violence for real-life death. LaPierre even mentioned "celebrities" in his talk — as if Megan Fox...

Stuart Stevens was the chief strategist for the Romney presidential campaign. Over the years, one of the more troubling characteristics of the Democratic Party and the left in general has been a shortage of loyalty and an abundance of self-loathing. It would be a shame if we Republicans took a narrow presidential loss as a signal that those are traits we should emulate. I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.’s green-room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That’s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought that he would win the Republican nomination. But...

SWEDEN'S largest toy chain "gender neutral" after picturing boys holding baby dolls and banishing girls from the dolls pages of its Christmas catalogue. Digital Pass - $5 weekend papers "For several years, we have found that the gender debate has grown so strong in the Swedish market that we ... have had to adjust," Jan Nyberg, director of sales at Top Toy, franchise-holder for US toy chain Toys R Us, said. The country's advertising watchdog reprimanded the company for gender discrimination three years ago following complaints over outdated gender roles in the 2008 Christmas catalogue, which featured boys dressed as...

Michelle Obama is the most popular woman in America, and Hillary Clinton’s standing has never been higher. So with the Democrats’ lead among female voters beginning to falter, should the party be exploiting its two greatest assets [?]Her long hair drawn back into a soignée French knot, the Secretary of State is tackling questions on Libya at the State Department in Washington DC. Dressed in a sharp navy suit, she speaks with authority, displaying an absolute command of the facts. At 65 – it was her birthday on Friday – Hillary Rodham Clinton is a woman on the crest of...

The marquee Senate race this year is in Massachusetts, where Democrat Elizabeth Warren is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown. "I never thought I'd run for public office, but I feel the urgency of this moment," says Warren. "If we don't make some important changes and make them soon, this country is going to change fundamentally, and it's not for the better." Democrats took notice of the former Harvard professor late last year, when a video of Warren speaking on fair taxation and debt surfaced online. "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody," Warren...

BARF ALERT.