Free Republic

Israel Navy commando forces carried out their largest drill in a decade last week. Soldiers of the elite Shayetet 13 and the 916 Detachment, together with the Snapir port security unit and the Israel Air Force, practiced "operational scenarios that could arise at any moment," reported Yohanan Levin in the Israel Navy Website. The senior leadership of the Detachment attended the exercise, in which soldiers simulated a number of scenarios. These included neutralization of an enemy force at sea, ship malfunctions, and evacuation of an injured soldier by helicopter – all carried out within severe time restraints. The exercise was...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Richard Mourdock's Senate campaign is now the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission. It has to do with the accusation that the Mourdock campaign improperly downloaded information from a GOP database. The state Republican Party last week cut off the campaign's access to the database known as Salesforce. The complaint was filed by John McCane, a former mayor of Rushville, who alleges that Mourdock used a state campaign committee to pay the $125 fee to access Salesforce and then illegally transferred information including email addresses to his federal campaign.

Are you kidding me? I get that Andrew Sullivan is a man with an agenda and I completely support his right to make his opinions heard. I also understand that Newsweek – like any other publication – is in business to make a profit and that frequently involves pushing the envelope in terms of catching the public’s attention. But at what point is too much simply too much? When is the shark definitively jumped and the daily bread burned past any reasonable definition of being toast? Ladies and gentlemen, this would be that point. Politico “explains.” “‘Let the games begin,”...

Richard E. Mourdock, who last week defeated Senator Richard G. Lugar, a six-term incumbent, promises to bring an uncompromising ideology to Capitol Hill if he prevails in November. And he is not the only Senate candidate who contends that Senate Republicans are badly in need of new blood. In Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas, Republican Senate candidates are vying for the mantle of Tea Party outsider. A number of them say that they would seek to press an agenda that is generally to the right of the minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and that they would demand a...

Deb Fischer rode into Norfolk on Thursday on the wave of endorsements by two notable politicians — U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Lincoln and former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Fischer, a state senator from Valentine who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Ben Nelson, met with the public at an informal session at the Downtown Coffee Company. Fischer is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, along with Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg and other candidates. The nominee is expected to run against former U.S. Sen....

The Associated Press has obtained and published a graphic rendering of a pressure structure that may prove Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The drawing is believed to have come from inside the Parchin military site near Tehran. It shows a cylindrical explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests. "Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber," AP said. The news agency received the image from "an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program who said the drawing proves the structure exists, despite Tehran's refusal to acknowledge...

Supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul booed one of Mitt Romney’s adult sons off the stage Saturday at the Arizona Republican Party convention as he tried to consolidate support for his father. Josh Romney’s speech to state GOP members was cut short by jeers from Paul backers at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, the Arizona Republic reported. The state’s convention was to elect delegates for the national convention in August, where the former Massachusetts governor is expected to wrap up the nomination to take on President Barack Obama. “We cannot afford four more years of President Obama,” said Josh Romney,...

Phil Collins, the musician, is an avid collector of Alamo memorabilia. Texas Monthly has written about Collins and his collection. And last week, as I was watching a music documentary on Nelflix about the making of Collins’ classic “Face Value” album (this is what I do at 3:30 a.m. when I can’t sleep), I was struck by how uber-produced the album was, by how painstakingly thorough — even anal — Collins was when creating his first solo project. (I mean, he’s a drummer who uses a drum machine.) But I imagine he brings the same passion and attention to detail...

I was avoiding writing this morning, and instead of cleaning my desk or sharpening pencils, I did a little calculating and figured out that on September 6th or so of this year (give or take a day or two, because of the various leap years) Jimmy Carter will have lived longer since LEAVING office than any other president in history. Right now, Herbert Hoover holds the record at 31 years, 7 months and 16 days. . . . So it’s a great thing that he has had this opportunity, this gift of longevity, and that he has used it so...

One day last summer, Anne and her husband, Miguel, took their 9-year-old son, Michael, to a Florida elementary school for the first day of what the family chose to call “summer camp.” For years, Anne and Miguel have struggled to understand their eldest son, an elegant boy with high-planed cheeks, wide eyes and curly light brown hair, whose periodic rages alternate with moments of chilly detachment. Michael’s eight-week program was, in reality, a highly structured psychological study — less summer camp than camp of last resort.

MONTERREY, Mexico — Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated bodies were found Sunday dumped on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey to the U.S. border in what could be the latest outburst in an escalating war of terror among drug gangs. Mexico’s organized crime groups often abandon multiple bodies in public places as warnings to their rivals, though Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said he did not rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants. The bodies of the 43 men and six women were found in the town of San Juan on...

As divided as Wisconsin voters are along party lines, both sides think they can win some defections June 5. Republicans think some voters who opposed Scott Walker in 2010 won't vote against him now because they don't like recalls. Democrats think some people who voted for Scott Walker in 2010 won’t do so again because they have buyer's remorse.Do these two groups of potential “defectors” exist in any meaningful numbers? Could they decide the outcome in a close race?Think of June 5 as two elections.One is a do-over for people who voted in the 2010 Walker-Barrett contest, which Walker won by 124,638 votes...

'Bass guitarist Donald "Duck" Dunn, who played with Booker T and the MGs, has died in Tokyo aged 70. The MGs were the house band for Stax Records, and Dunn can be heard on songs such as Otis Redding's Respect and Sam and Dave's Hold On, I'm Comin'. He was in Japan for a series of concerts, and had played two shows on Saturday night. His friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour, said Dunn had died in his sleep. "Today I lost my best friend," Cropper wrote on his Facebook page. "The World has...

LINWOOD — Woodstock Drive has been the center of a major homicide investigation, media attention and local speculation since April Kauffman, a well-known veterans advocate, business owner and local radio host, was found shot multiple times in her home there Thursday. But as the investigation reached day three Saturday — when officials said there have still been no arrests in the case — there were signs that the typically peaceful community was returning to normal. Police cars were no longer blocking the streets. The cluster of media was gone. And people were out doing things such as working in their...

May 12, 2012 The Man Who Would Be Dictator Burt Prelutsky How do I hate Barack Obama? I might spin Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s immortal words and say, “Let me count the ways. I hate him to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.” But even that doesn’t quite cover the contempt I have for this past and present community agitator. Fifty long years after Martin Luther King suggested we judge a person by his character, this slug is still waging race warfare. While we are all well-aware that he is basing his entire re-election campaign on separating...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A postal worker says a mysterious leaking package from Yemen has left him seriously ill, but the U.S. Postal Service denies the package ever existed. The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, in a story printed in Sunday's Miami Herald and The Ledger of Lakeland, reported that Jeffrey A. Lill suffers from extreme fatigue, tremors, and liver and neurological problems. The symptoms are consistent with toxic exposure, problems that he said began after he handled the leaking package on Feb. 4, 2011. The center tracked down co-workers who said that they saw and smelled the package and that...

As Democrats have solidified an upstairs-downstairs constituency of affluent, socially moderate white suburbanites and minorities (many economically strained), they have established a durable hold on states shaped by rising education levels and diversity. As Republicans have become a more monolithically conservative party, especially on social issues, they have tightened their control over heavily religious Southern and heartland states but watched more cosmopolitan states move at varying rates toward the Democrats in presidential races. “All of this is squeezing [and] compressing the map for Republicans,” says Steve Schmidt, the campaign manager for GOP nominee John McCain in 2008. In fact, since...

As summer draws near, thoughts of the well-heeled Parisian turn to Le Grand Départ. The annual mass exodus from the French capital sees the city's inhabitants while away the August heat in the countryside. But this week many of the biggest earners across the Channel have been mulling a départ which could be rather more permanent. (Snip) In addition, France's high earners feel increasingly unwelcome in a country now led by a man who has admitted: "I don't like the rich." So where are they looking? London. It comes as no surprise – while Hollande prepares to raise taxes, over

May 12, 2012 JC Penney Features Same-Sex Couple in May Catalogue Fifteen years ago, when advertisers got wind that Ellen DeGeneres was going to “come out” on her popular sitcom show “Ellen,” some advertisers fled. One of them was JC Penney. Flash forward to one of their newest clothing ads in the May catalog. It features a real-life same-sex couple. The photograph is of two models identified as Wendi and Maggie holding their two daughters. Both women appear be wearing wedding bands. Quietly, gradually and largely without protest, advertising is starting to reflect new attitudes and new realities about who...

Health-insurance companies must tell customers who get a premium rebate this summer that the check is the result of the Obama administration's health-care law, according to federal guidelines released Friday.