Free Republic

The president will stop in Vatican City as part of European tour President Barack Obama will travel to Italy in March to meet with Pope Francis for the first time, the White House announced Tuesday. The March 27 visit to the Vatican comes as part of a European tour during which Obama will also visit the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. "The president looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality," said a White House statement. Before arriving in Vatican City, Obama will spend two days in the Netherlands participating in the Nuclear...

No matter how the AFC Championship game between Denver and New England turns out, the Broncos playoff run will turn out well for Justin Staley. Why? Staley's an owner of Mile High Medical Cannabis, whose location, at 1705 Federal Boulevard, is only steps away from Mile High Stadium. Last week, plenty of San Diego Chargers fans in town for their match-up stopped by the shop to take advantage of legal recreational pot sales -- something that presumably helped them deal with a 24-17 loss -- and visiting Patriots boosters are following suit. "We had around 225 or so Californians come...

BOSTON — A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a judge's ruling granting a taxpayer-funded sex change operation for a transgender inmate serving a life sentence for a murder conviction, saying receiving medically necessary treatment is a constitutional right that must be protected "even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox." U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in 2012 that the state Department of Correction must provide sex reassignment surgery for Michelle Kosilek, who was born Robert Kosilek and is serving a life sentence for the killing of his wife in 1990. The Department of Correction challenged the...

PHOENIX – An Arizona sheriff facing huge compliance costs from a court ruling that found his office had racially profiled Latinos has demanded that the federal government fork over nearly $38 million, saying Washington is to blame for providing some of his deputies with faulty immigration enforcement training. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio sent a letter Thursday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement demanding that Washington pick up nearly $30 million in compliance costs, $1.2 million in legal fees for defending the sheriff and more than $7 million in legal fees being sought by...

Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court heard arguments as it struggles to determine whether domestic violence offenders could be barred from possessing a firearm even if they have only committed minor offenses. The high court's nine justices took up the case of James Castleman, who argues that his domestic assault conviction in Tennessee for intentionally or knowingly causing "bodily injury" to the mother of his child did not prohibit him under federal law from owning a gun. Investigators later learned that he was illegally trafficking guns, and Castleman was charged with violating a ban on gun possession for people...

Partisan bickering over measures to repeal gun legislation in Colorado has already begun, less than a week after political leadership in the General Assembly called for party cooperation in their opening day speeches. Senate Republican leader Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs took the microphone on the Senate floor Tuesday to raise questions about why the Democrat leadership - specifically Senate President Morgan Carroll of Aurora - extended the deadline to introduce the first gun repeal bill of the legislative session. "Never seen this in 14 years," said Cadman. who served in the House before becoming a senator. "I am anxiously...

President Obama seems ready to work around Congress in 2014, telling reporters before his first Cabinet meeting of the year Tuesday that he stood ready to use two tools, a pen and a phone, to provide help for Americans. “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we're providing Americans the kind of help that they need. I've got a pen, and I've got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward in helping to make...

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who according to a forthcoming book is on Hillary Clinton’s “hit list,” offered his support for the former secretary of State, senator and first lady if she runs for president again in 2016. “I’m a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton. I hope she will run for president, and I’ve indicated I would be a supporter of Hillary Clinton if she runs, but again, I’m trying to figure out this last one,” Van Hollen said on MSNBC. “As I say, it’s an unsolved mystery. Maybe someone will pick up the phone and tell me. Again, this...

Summoning his inner community organizer, President Obama said Thursday he intends to “mobilize the country” this year around a national mission of giving poor Americans a shot at economic success. “This is going to be a year of action,” Mr. Obama said at the White House. “This is not just a job for government. This is a job for everybody.” The president announced the selection of five new “promise zones” — distressed communities that will qualify for tax breaks and expedited grants to combat poverty. The administration chose Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Antonio, an eight-county region in southeastern Kentucky and...

Following yesterday’s performance by the Democrats at the opening of the 2014 session, we’ve decided to help them package their agenda, so Colorado really understands what the 2014 legislative session is all about.  We’re calling it the Amnesia Platform.After seeing quite clearly it’s toxic to run on what the liberal agenda they passed in 2013, Democrats are trying to make 2013 go away as quickly as possible, but, without, you know, changing any of it.In speeches by both Senate President Morgan Carroll, and Speaker Mark Ferrandino, the heavy-handed pleas for bipartisanship illustrated what Democrats know: their only hope for a...

The Obama administration tried to edit a report on new coal regulations to lower analysts’ estimates of serious job losses, an official investigation has found, backing up reports that the Interior Department pressured a private contractor to change information in order to make the data more acceptable. The Associated Press and Fox News reported in 2011 that a company claimed the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement asked it to change variables in a calculation that showed new environmental regulations would lead to large job losses. The company and its subcontractors initially estimated that 7,000 jobs could be lost...

Starting Jan. 1, every woman in the Marines Corps was supposed to meet a new physical standard by performing three pullups. But that has been put off. The Marine Corps announced it quietly. There was no news conference — just a notice on its social media sites and an item on its own TV show, The Corps Report. Lance Cpl. Ally Beiswanger explained that the pullup test had been put off until sometime next year, to gather more data and "ensure all female Marines are given the best opportunity to succeed." So far, female Marines are not succeeding. Fifty-five percent...

WASHINGTON: US secretary of state John Kerry has expressed concern over the crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood after Egypt's military-backed government designated it a terrorist group. He conveyed his concerns to Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Fahmy during a telephonic call, the state department said in a statement. "Kerry expressed concern about the interim Egyptian government's December 25 terrorist designation of the Muslim Brotherhood, and recent detentions and arrests," it said. "He condemned the horrific terrorist bombing of the Dakahliya security directorate in Mansoura on December 23, as well as today's bus bombing in Cairo, and expressed his condolences," it said. It...

Reps. Michele Bachmann, Steve King — from Iowa, not New York — and Louie Gohmert made a hush-hush trip to the Middle East this week, flying commercial into high-profile danger zones like Beirut, Cairo and Tripli, attending embassy briefings but declining to release information. The Washington Post reported the travels, and said the lawmakers’ offices refused to divulge details. ... In Tripoli, the trio met with embassy officials to receive updates on the Benghazi attack and on the general situation in Libya, The Post said.

Budget deal cuts oil and gas royalties to states The budget deal in Congress will cost Wyoming, New Mexico and other states $415 million in lost oil and gas royalties over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Legislation implementing the agreement makes permanent an effective 51-49 percent split that favors the federal government in dividing the 12.5 percent royalty collected from energy companies on oil and gas production on federal land. Until 2008 when the Interior Department began setting aside 2 percent of the royalties as an administrative fee, the split between the federal and state government...

A federal judge Tuesday rejected the Obama administration’s sweeping claims of executive privilege and ordered the disclosure of a foreign aid directive signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 but never publicly released. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled the presidential order is not within the bounds of executive privilege and called the government’s arguments in favor of secrecy “troubling.” “The government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight … to engage in what is in effect governance by ‘secret law,’” Huvelle said. The...

HONG KONG (AP) — President Barack Obama’s half brother is publishing an autobiography that details the domestic abuse that served as the theme for his earlier semiautobiographical novel, which featured an abusive parent patterned on their late father. In fact, Mark Obama Ndesandjo says he wants to “set the record straight” about some of the lies President Obama included in his bestselling 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” Ndesandjo also recounts his sporadic but intense encounters with his brother over the years in “Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery.” The self-published book is to be released in February. In “Dreams From...

UPDATE: Noting that Alan Salazar, Hick’s strategery chief, retweeted the bizarre proclamation, Colorado’s gubernatorial candidates weighed in via The Colorado Observer.  Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo said that the tweet “seem[ed] to claim that ‘there is no Second Amendment’ and called on the governor to explain the message”, observing: “The tweet implies that the governor looks at gun rights in the same way as [Potter] does, and unless the governor says something to the contrary, that’s what we have to conclude.” Fellow gubernatorial candidate and state senator, Greg Brophy, said, “It’s an indication of how deeply their animosity toward gun rights...

Washington (CNN) -- For the first time in what seems like ages, Congress has passed a government spending plan without resorting to last-minute brinkmanship such as midnight negotiations to prevent an imminent government shutdown. The Senate voted 64-36 on Wednesday to send the compromise federal budget framework to President Barack Obama, who has signaled his support. Last week, the budget plan easily passed the House on a 332-94 vote, with solid majorities of both parties supporting it. Ayotte: Budget deal unfair to vets Ex-CBO directors: Budget right on basics Boehner, the tea party, and the GOP McCain: We can't shut...

WILL WARREN WING SCUTTLE BUDGET DEAL? - Speaker John Boehner delivered on his promise to pass a bipartisan budget bill through the House, and he’s taking plenty of blowback from conservatives for it. But the real test for the two year can-kick seems to be whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can tame an increasingly unruly liberal wing of his own party. Far-left senators like Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Al Franken, D-Minn., Tom Udall, D-N.M. and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., can’t be happy about maintaining more than half of the spending caps from the 2011 debt-limit deal and making...