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~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ EQUIPMENT CHECK Army Sgt. Nicholas Parrott prepares a Bambi bucket for a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to help fight the East Peak fire near La Veta, CO, June 21, 2013. Parrott is assigned to the Colorado Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment, stationed on Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, CO. U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Darin Overstreet Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. SUNSET MONITOR Navy...

Just when you think Vladimir Putin’s propaganda cannot sink any lower, it invariably does. Andranik Migranyan is a seasoned Kremlin hand. A former member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, a cavalier of the presidentially bestowed Order of Honor, he currently heads the New York office of the so-called Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, a Russian GONGO created on the initiative of Vladimir Putin in 2007 (it also has an office in Paris). This week, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper published Migranyan’s article attacking Professor Andrei Zubov, a prominent and well-respected Russian historian, who, in his recent op-ed in...

ROME, April 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A court in the Tuscan city of Grosseto has ordered the city council to accept the “marriage� of two men, the first time such a union has been given juridical recognition in Italy. Giancarlo Cerrelli, vice president of the Catholic Lawyer’s Guild, says the ruling is a “creative judgment that takes no account of the Civil Code and the jurisprudence of the European Union.� Two homosexual men, Giuseppe Chigiotti and Stefano Bucci, contracted a legal “marriage� ceremony in New York in December last year, then returned to Italy and filed a suit against the...

Editor's note: Christopher S. Chivvis is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and expert in European and Eurasian security issues. You can follow him @cchivvis. Bonny Lin is an associate political scientist at RAND and an expert on Asia-Pacific security issues. The views expressed are their own. At Sunday night's emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, Western countries denounced Russian efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine. Depending on your reading of its statement, China either refused to do the same, or refused to back Russia. Either way, the meeting was just the latest example of how the Ukraine...

China's GDP grew 7.4% in the first quarter amid growing evidence that the powerhouse economy is easing offThe new railway station being built in Shenyang, Liaoning province. Investment in fixed assets dipped in the first quarter. China's annual economic growth slowed to its lowest for nearly a quarter of a century between January and March to 7.4% from 7.7% in the previous three months.

Toddlers show racial bias when picking playmates, a study reveals. They also take account of how fairly others behave. Researchers tested the reaction of white 15-month-olds as toys were distributed.Two white adults divided the toys, one equally and the other unequally. Seventy per cent of the toddlers chose to play with the researcher who distributed the toys fairly. But in a second test, when one researcher favoured a white recipient over an Asian one, they picked the ‘fair’ researcher less often, the journal Frontiers in Psychology reports. And the babies are more likely to help those who share the same...

Feature: Nevada standoff signifies movement against federal control of public landsBUNKERVILLE, NEV.—For some, the story of Cliven Bundy and his 20-year fight against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is about one man’s refusal to pay grazing fees on public land he doesn’t own. For the family, and scores of supporters that have come to his aid in the face of aggressive force used by the federal government, what happened in Bunkerville, Nev. is about the “rise of the West.” “As important as it is for a man to fight for his ranch and his livelihood, this is much bigger...

Wednesday on the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," Al Sharpton offered a curious explanation involving President Barack Obama for the meaning of Easter: "I think that the message is, no matter what the world may do to unfairly, no matter how your crucified, nailed to the cross at home, or in your personal relationships, or on the job that you can rise if you don't lose yourself during the hard times and the challenges. The story of Jesus on the cross. no matter what they humiliated him with. no matter how they mocked him he took it, because he knew he...

Last Friday, in a speech at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference, President Obama proudly announced that the Justice Department had taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009. The problem with that claim is that, since 2009, the Justice Department has taken on only 39 voting rights cases—and as former Voting Section lawyer Christian Adams points out, only 13 were related to protecting minority voting rights. And, with respect to some of the cases in which the department has been involved, it lost spectacularly—such as its false claim that South Carolina’s voter ID law was discriminatory. Perhaps...

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will spend $50 million this year to build a nationwide grassroots network on gun control in a direct challenge to the National Rifle Association, The New York Times reported. The new lobbying group, called Everytown for Gun Safety, will encompass other gun control groups funded by Bloomberg, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the report said. Bloomberg told the Times the strategy will focus on expanding the background check system for gun buyers at the state and national levels. He made nearly $14 million in federal campaign...

Sorry for the vanity post but I had a question and thought regarding the Bundy Ranch issues and really the core of the corruption... It boils down to the concept of land offset as part of ..The Rules you and I must follow and who gets exception to the rules because their powerful or friends of the powerful. . We have all seen this..take Obamacare. .push through a draconian law then give exceptions and waver to your friends and strict, to the letter, enforcement to your enemys..same with emigration. .selective enforcement to the letter vs selective non enforcement and out...

Mayor Bill de Blasio is the first New York City mayor to release his tax returns in 12 years, according to the WSJ. de Blasio earned $165,000 as public advocate last year and brought in an additional $52,000 in rent on a second home he owns in Park Slope, according to his 2013 tax returns. Mr. de Blasio’s effective tax rate was 8.3%. As WSJ reports, Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who served as mayor from 2002 through 2013, released highly redacted copies of his return that gave scant information about his net worth. In 2001, during...

(Reuters) - Armored personal carriers driven into the eastern Ukrainian city of Slaviansk had been under the control of Ukrainian armed forces earlier on Wednesday, pictures taken by Reuters photographers showed. A soldier guarding one of six troop carriers now under the control of pro-Russian separatists told Reuters he was a member of Ukraine's 25th paratrooper division from Dnipropetrovsk. "All the soldiers and the officers are here. We are all boys who won't shoot our own people," said the soldier, whose uniform did not have any identifying markings on it. "They haven't fed us for three days on our base....

WASHINGTON — Ukraine’s military has an urgent need for nonlethal military assistance like body armor, night-vision goggles, communications gear and aviation fuel to defend against a potential Russian attack, according to a new analysis by a former NATO commander and a former Pentagon official. But wary of provoking Russia, the Obama administration has been reluctant to provide it, they say. (snip) The new interim government in Ukraine submitted a request to NATO nations last month for military assistance, including vehicles, mine-clearing equipment, communications gear, medical supplies, fuel and the sharing of intelligence. The United States has sent 300,000 M.R.E. —...

JW Obtains IRS Documents Showing Lerner in Contact With DOJ about Potential Prosecution of Tax-Exempt Groups APRIL 16, 2014 May 9, 2013, email reveals IRS plans to meet with Department of Justice over whether to prosecute groups that “lied” about plans for political activity (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act...

Earlier this week, Sen. Jeff Sessions said that the president was deliberately dismantling our law enforcement system. Megyn Kelly of Fox News asked Rep. Gowdy about that. Rep. Trey Gowdy, a former prosecutor, agrees with Sen. Sessions that the president is systematically dismantling the nation’s laws, but he believes it is to win elections not to pursue an agenda. They [the administration] do however fundamentally view their role differently, he added. Attorney General Eric Holder recently claimed that illegal immigration is a civil right, if that is so, Gowdy says, that is like saying you and I have the right...

Military dive teams worked the dark, cold waters of the Yellow Sea on Wednesday night in a desperate effort to find nearly 300 people who remained missing after the ferry they were taking to a South Korean island resort sank with breathtaking speed. -excerpt- The bulk of those aboard were students and teachers from Seoul's Ansan Danwon High School heading to a four-day trip to Jeju, a resort island considered the Hawaii of Korea. More than 300 students and more than a dozen teachers from the school were on board, according to officials.

Here’s something from the “Did you know that?” category. Did you know that abortions are apparently eligible for a tax deduction? That appears to be true, so says the IRS.irs From the Washington Examiner, in a list of odd tax deductions: Have an abortion, get a tax deduction! How strange that pro-abortion advocates aren’t using this as a selling point. Hmmm. Oh, and while they hyperventilate over Hobby Lobby not wanting to provide every type of birth control without a co-pay, it turns out that birth control pills can be deducted if prescribed by a doctor. Also, you can deduct...

Megyn Kelly’s "Kelly File" is a great news show. She’s incisive, informed and customarily handles the toughest guest with aplomb. But her lengthy interview of Facebook C.O.O. Sheryl Sandberg about her second book in the Lean In series Lean In: For Graduates was a head shaker. Amazing that she of all people allowed Sandberg to restring the same old, same old, shamed, and shopworn feminist myths about women and girls and then jangle it in front of her viewing audience like something new out of the box. Indeed Kelly all but genuflected in front of this woman. Kept her on...

The College Board on Wednesday will release many details of its revised SAT, including sample questions and explanations of the research, goals and specifications behind them. “We are committed to a clear and open SAT, and today is the first step in that commitment,” said Cyndie Schmeiser, the College Board’s chief of assessment, in a conference call on Monday, previewing the changes to be introduced in the spring of 2016. She said the 211-page test specifications and supporting materials being shared publicly include “everything a student needs to know to walk into that test and not be surprised.” The overall...

While the cold air was rushing in last evening @dendenator from Sommerville tweeted me asking me if there would be 1 to 3 inches of snow. I quickly replied, no, you might be lucky if you see a flake. Well, I guess there was an abundance of luck this morning as the ground has become coated with snow in many places. The good news is we didn’t see 1 to 3 inches of snow, the bad news is early commuters will have to use winter driving skills one more time. Cold air has been pouring into the country for the...

Excellent interview (youtube video) with Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia, who grew up in New Jersey and he doesn't even have a Jersey accent. :-) Do yourself a favor and watch it.

House Democrats, who are stepping up the pressure on Republicans to take up comprehensive immigration reform legislation, said Tuesday the Obama administration is getting ready to take executive action on the matter very soon.Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson earlier this month told House Democrats he'll take action in the next few weeks on “fixes” to immigration law, most likely dealing with deportation.“He gave us a time frame, and there are some fixes that are going to be coming sooner, which is in the next few weeks. And then there are some broader policy changes that will be coming later this...

Narendra Modi, the odds on favourite for prime minister who is running under the banner of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has suffered a major blow. His right hand man, Amit Shah (pictured), has been barred from future campaign rallies after making a number of anti-Muslim statements. A close Modi aide for years, Shah was in charge of his campaign in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. In announcing its decision on Sunday, the Election Commission said that Shah's statements promoted "hatred and ill will" between religions. It also urged police to press criminal charges.The politician, among other...

A Republican lawmaker has introduced legislation that would cut off pay to Attorney General Eric Holder and other federal officials who have been held in contempt of Congress. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, introduced the "Contempt Act" on Tuesday, less than a week after alluding to the measure during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing where Holder faced criticism from GOP lawmakers. "The American people should not be footing the bill for federal employees who stonewall Congress or rewarding government officials’ bad behavior," Farenthold said in a statement. "If the average American failed to do his or her job, he or...

President Barack Obama is attempting to lower the rate of “births” — and separately, pregnancies — among blacks and Latinos.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists reducing “births” as one of the top goals of Obama’s “Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.”The language on the CDC’s website makes clear that the program seeks to reduce the rate of both pregnancies and “births” among minorities.Specifically, the CDC says the “purpose of this program is to demonstrate the effectiveness of innovative, multicomponent, communitywide initiatives in reducing rates of teen pregnancy and births in communities with the highest rates, with a focus on reaching African American...

Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000.That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week.These are the people who built America, and these are the people who can sustain it as a free country. The liberal media has not made them famous like the polar bear, but they are truly a threatened species.It is not a rancher...

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Obama’s nominee to lead the country’s health care overhaul, remains entangled in a lawsuit brought by shareholders of MetLife accusing her of misleading investors as a director of one of the country’s biggest insurance companies. The federal lawsuit, filed in New York, says the company used a Social Security death index to stop making payments when beneficiaries died, but the company wasn’t as diligent about using the database to track deaths of its policyholders, which triggers payouts, the lawsuit said. Last year, a judge refused to toss a federal lawsuit against the company, including claims against...

Washington (CNN) -- A new video shows what looks like the largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years. And the CIA and the Pentagon either didn't know about it or couldn't get a drone there in time to strike. U.S. officials won't comment on that, but every frame of the video is now being analyzed by the United States. In the middle of the clip, the man known as al Qaeda's crown prince, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, appears brazenly out in the open, greeting followers in Yemen. Al-Wuhayshi, the No. 2 leader of al Qaeda globally and the head...

On April 6, Eurasianist storm troopers operating under Kremlin coordination launched assaults, seizing government buildings in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Lugansk, and several smaller cities in eastern Ukraine; declared themselves to be the assemblies of independent governments; and immediately invited Russian troops to invade and annex their respective fictional statelets. There can be no doubt that many of the thousands of invaders involved were in fact Eurasianist storm troopers, and not, as reported by some media outlets, “pro-Russian protesters.” They carried the outward-radiating eight-arrowed flag of Putinist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin’s fascist Eurasianist movement and shouted and displayed its slogan for the operation,...

A federal planning group has delivered what could be a fatal blow to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission's controversial design for honoring the former president and World War II hero.Nine full-time, taxpayer-funded employees and a board of aging political leaders have spent the better part of a decade planning the memorial to President Eisenhower, but the National Capital Planning Commission rejected their proposal nearly two weeks ago.Other national memorial planners held open design competitions, but the EMC quickly settled on Frank Gehry -- the distinctive, modernist designer of Los Angeles' theme park-esque Walt Disney Concert Hall and an old...

On April 15th the New York Police Department (NYPD) announced that its Muslim surveillance unit had been disbanded.The surveillance unit came "under fire by community activists who accused the department of abusing civil rights."According to the Associated Press, the surveillance unit "relied on plainclothes officers to eavesdrop on people in bookstores, restaurants, and mosques." Starting in 2011, "the AP documented that police had systematically spied on Muslim neighborhoods, listened in on sermons, infiltrated colleges, and photographed law-abiding citizens as part of a broad effort to watch communities where terror cells might operate."

The Defense Department, under pressure from Congress to re-examine the way it handles sexual assault cases, announced Tuesday a comprehensive review of the entire military justice system. “It’s been over 30 years since the military code of justice was reviewed. It’s simply time,” said Lt. Col. J. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman. “Sexual assault will certainly be part of the compendium of issues that will be looked at, but it’s by no means the sole issue.” Members of Congress and women’s groups have been strongly critical of how the military handles sexual assault cases, particularly the authority that military officers...

An effort by Washington to build housing for Haitians in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake has fallen short and exceeded costs, a U.S. government report said Tuesday. The audit by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Agency for International Development said the project to build 4,000 houses outside Haiti's capital resulted in the construction of only 816. The U.S. plan also sought to provide "home sites" on which others would pay for the construction of houses. This, too, fell short, with USAID completing engineering and design services for only 2,300 home sites out of a projected...

~ Freeper Canteen ~ Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Today We Want You To Take..... The Kite Test Click here and take the quiz! To share your results, click on the green "HTML" button, then copy and paste the code into a "Reply" box. Have fun! Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly.

A Republican congressman has introduced a bill that would stop government paychecks for officials who have been found in contempt of Congress — a move that seems designed in the short term to go after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Mr. Holder has refused to cooperate with the House GOP’s probe into the Fast & Furious gun-walking operation, and the House has voted to find him in contempt. Mr. Holder is challenging that vote in court. Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican who publicly excoriated Mr. Holder at a hearing last week, introduced the legislation just before Congress went...

Attorney Stanley Cohen, who has defended Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and the leader of Hamas .. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Stanley Cohen, a prominent lawyer who has represented political activists and terrorism suspects, among them Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, pleaded guilty this morning in Syracuse to obstructing the IRS. ... Last month, Cohen was the lawyer representing Osama bin Laden's son-in-law in a high-profile New York City criminal trial. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and of other terrorism charges. ... Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan wrote that Cohen failed to file tax returns from 2005 through...

As a former Klan leader is charged with killing three in Kansas, the frayed white supremacy group is trying to attract new members. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates the number of hate groups in the U.S. has risen from 602 in 2000 to 939 in 2013 The Ku Klux Klan was once a major force in America, with a membership of nearly 4 million that regularly included mayors, chiefs of police and other grandees of segregated regions, especially in the South and Midwest. It’s been decades since the Klan held that sort of mainstream sway, but Sunday’s deadly rampage...

In the Obama era, Democrats usually have had two big advantages over Republicans: women and volunteers. This year, Republicans are trying to change that, seeking to amass an army of young female volunteers who can carry the GOP message and counter the “war on women” rhetoric that has been so effective for Democrats. Fresh off a week in which Democrats made it clear that a key part of their midterm message will be equal pay, Republicans are set to begin their own efforts to woo women to the polls, focusing on counties that went blue in 2012 and could tip...

Last week, Brandeis revoked an invitation it had offered to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born feminist and political essayist, to attend the university's commencement ceremonies, where she had been scheduled to speak and receive an honorary degree. Hirsi Ali has spent much of the last decade denouncing not just Islamist fundamentalism but Islam generally (she has described the religion as a "destructive, nihilistic cult of death"), and once Brandeis's Muslim Students Association and many others objected to her appearance, the university pretty hastily revoked her invitation. Conservatives have since denounced Brandeis for suppressing free speech, and liberals have, somewhat more...

April 15, 2014RNC Sues IRS for Illegal Stonewalling WASHINGTON – Today the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for withholding records sought by the RNC’s 2013 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. In the initial request on May 21, 2013, the RNC sought to review documents and correspondence related to criteria used for reviewing and approving 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations. This request followed revelations that the IRS had been targeting conservative organizations, and the RNC sought to shed light on who had ordered actions to be taken against those groups and why.Over the course...

New York Officials Argue for Flexibility with Gun Law Violators… As Long as They're on the City's PayrollSome of New York's most strident gun control advocates have rushed to the defense of an unwitting traveler who was arrested at an airport for a technical violation of a draconian gun law. Has a new era of sanity arrived in the Big Apple? Not really. This defendant happens to be an NYPD officer who is alleged to have violated India's strict firearm regulations. On March 10th, NYPD Officer Manny Encarnacion was arrested when officials at the airport in New Delhi discovered three...

On August 25, 2006 the New York Times published a nearly 6,000-word, front-page analysis of the evidence in the case against the three lacrosse-playing students at Duke University who were charged with raping a prostitute who had been hired to dance at a party. The article conceded that holes had emerged in the case brought against them by Mike Nifong, the district attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina. But by presenting material in the light most favorable to Nifong’s claims and by excluding or diminishing the significance of key exculpatory evidence, the Times implied that a rape still might have occurred....

WASHINGTON — The Census Bureau, the authoritative source of health insurance data for more than three decades, is changing its annual survey so thoroughly that it will be difficult to measure the effects of President Obama’s health care law in the next report, due this fall, census officials said. The changes are intended to improve the accuracy of the survey, being conducted this month in interviews with tens of thousands of households around the country. But the new questions are so different that the findings will not be comparable, the officials said. An internal Census Bureau document said that the...

Millions may get “insured” through Obamacare, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to see a physician. Proponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insist that the law will extend health insurance to millions, expand access to health care, and improve Americans’ overall health. But, as the New York Times recently reported, at least 20 percent of the new enrollees have not paid their premiums. They therefore do not really have insurance. But even for those enrollees paying premiums, having health insurance is not the same thing as getting good health care, or any health care. In fact, it doesn’t...

A bird native to Arizona and other western states could be listed as a threatened species by the federal government. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo lives along the Verde, Colorado and San Pedro Rivers in Arizona. It also can be found at the Gila River and Rio Grande in New Mexico and the Sacramento and Kern Rivers in California. Federal officials said the bird’s habitat is shrinking because of dams and other construction projects on the rivers, plus cattle grazing.

April 15, 2014 Texas Front-Runner for Statewide Office Calls on Governor to Mobilize National Guard to Prevent BLM Takeover Sid Miller Campaign Sid Miller, the former Chair of the Texas House Homeland Security & Public Safety and Agriculture and Livestock Committees, and now the frontrunner in the Republican race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, said today that the Bureau of Land ManagementÂ’s decision to halt their forced removal of Cliven BundyÂ’s cattle in Nevada was only a temporary delay in the federal agencies attempt to violate the private property and water rights of Americana and warned Texans to remain vigilant against...

A series of billboards are cropping up from Nashville, TN to Texas announcing the Obamacare Games, where “the odds are never in your favor.” The billboards are the product of refusetoenroll.org and are a play on the massively popular books-turned-movies called The Hunger Games, where the motto of the fight-to-the-death matches are “May the odds be always in your favor.” According do their website, refusetoenroll:  “Initiated a new billboard campaign as part of our ongoing 'Refuse to Enroll' effort. The exchanges are the Achilles' heel of Obamacare. They are also the IRS enforcement centers, the federal takeover centers, and the insurance...

An EU Bill of Rights that overrides British laws is becoming a “reality”, the vice-president of the European Commission has said. Viviane Reding said that people in European member states will in future be able to “rely” on the EU charter of “fundamental rights”. The European Commission wants to enforce the charter, which enshrines 54 basic rights in EU law, in all member states. Senior British judges have warned that the EU charter has already taken hold in Britain by stealth and Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, has said he is prepared to go to court in an attempt to...

A pregnant woman with appendicitis died after a trainee surgeon mistakenly removed one of her healthy ovaries, a tribunal heard. Maria De Jesus, 32, underwent the operation at Queen's Hospital, Romford, Essex, after she was admitted with abdominal pains in October 2011. She died 19 days later after suffering a miscarriage. Dr Yahya Al-Abed admitted he made a number of errors during the procedure, including removing her right ovary instead of her appendix. Senior surgical consultant, Dr Babatunde Coker, is accused of failing in his role by not attending theatre to carry out the surgery himself or supervising the registrar....