Free Republic

The Smithsonian Institution announced on Monday that it has chosen an energetic fund-raiser and a forceful advocate of the arts and humanities as its new director: David J. Skorton, the president of Cornell University. Dr. Skorton, who is also a practicing cardiologist, was selected as secretary out of a starting field of 200 candidates by a unanimous vote of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents... Calling the job a “once-in-a-lifetime chance,” Dr. Skorton said he hoped to “shine a light more clearly on people behind the scenes” at the Smithsonian. He deferred laying out any other agenda or priorities, saying his...

Democratic Senate candidates, facing withering criticism on the national health care law, are gambling they can turn voters against two billionaire brothers funding the attacks—even if few Americans would recognize the pair on the street. In an accelerating counteroffensive stretching from the Senate chamber to Alaska, Democrats are denouncing Charles and David Koch, the key figures behind millions of dollars in conservative TV ads hammering Democratic candidates and their ties to President Barack Obama. Democrats depict the Kansas-based Koch (pronounced “Coke”) brothers as self-serving oil barons who pay huge sums to try to “buy” elections and advance their agenda of...

The takeover of Crimea by Russia is nearly complete. All that remains is the final vote on March 16. There would not be a vote if the outcome was uncertain. Troops Install Minefields, Border Markers in Crimea

Nato is to deploy reconnaissance planes in Poland and Romania to monitor the Ukrainian crisis. It gave the go-ahead for the flights on Monday, a Nato spokesman said. "All Awacs [Airborne Warning and Control System] reconnaissance flights will take place solely over alliance territory," the official said. It comes as Russia cements its control of Ukraine's Crimea ahead of Sunday's referendum to join Russia. Ukraine and the West say this is illegal. In the latest move on Monday, armed men - said to be Russian troops and local militias - seized a military hospital in Crimea. The attackers marched into...

The Ministry of Transport on Sunday ordered local airports and airlines to tighten their security after a Malaysian plane with 239 people aboard vanished near Vietnam, raising possibility of hijack. Speaking to online newspaper Dan Tri, Dinh Viet Thang, deputy chief of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV), said Vietnam is now on the first level of a three-level security alert system. It is not the highest level, but an initial warning is necessary for improving the national aviation security, given that a Malaysian jet went missing in an area related to Vietnam, he said. Following the Vietnamese ministry’s...

Washington (CNN) - Slightly more Americans approve than disapprove of how President Barack Obama has so far handled the crisis in Ukraine, but that has not affected the President's overall job approval rating, according to a new national poll. The CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that economic sanctions against Russia appears to be the only option that a majority of Americans support that's available to the U.S. to try and end the crisis in the Ukraine. Forty-eight percent of people questioned in the poll say they approve of how the President has so far handled the Ukraine crisis,...

From the “not what you might expect” files, here’s a fact about Catholicism in the early 21st century that flies in the face of conventional wisdom: It’s growing by leaps and bounds in the heart of the Muslim world. Many Americans have heard about an exodus of Christians out of the Middle East, and that’s all too real. Christians now make up only 5 percent of the region’s population, down from 20 percent a century ago. In places like Iraq, whole Christian communities are on the brink of extinction. Yet the Arabian Peninsula today is also seeing one of the...

The other day, I saw a video of a man at a Democratic National Committee gathering. This correspondent repeatedly asked a great number of the attendees if they could name one major accomplishment that Hillary Clinton had done, something that would make her uniquely qualified to become the next President of the United States. Not a single one of them could name anything

In 2006, Georgia Republican and Senate hopeful David Perdue said that the way to the large number of unemployed Americans needed to be dealt with at a “federal level” and could not be left to the states. At a meeting of the Retail Industry Leaders Association in 2006, Perdue, then the CEO of Dollar General, lamented the high number of uninsured people, the Dallas Morning News and Retailing Today reported at the time. “It’s a tragedy that so many people are uninsured,” Perdue said of health insurance, according to a Dallas Morning News article from Oct. 17, 2006. Read more:...

hen groggy, disoriented teenagers are awoken in the predawn hours to find Don Haworth in their room, the 59-year-old with a gray goatee and handcuffs under his coat offers two choices: Come quietly or force will be used. Haworth is a child transporter. Parents pay him to take their unwilling and troubled children to wilderness camps and specialized schools, often located in the remote wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. He offers door-to-door service. His charges struggle with problems ranging from drugs to authority issues. “Parents go in and introduce us to the child,” Haworth explained. Expletive-laced explosions often follow. The...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Border Patrol has restricted border agents’ authority to shoot at moving vehicles or at people throwing rocks, changing a controversial policy that has contributed to at least 19 deaths since 2010. In a memo released Friday, Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher directed border agents not to step in front of moving vehicles, nor to use their bodies to block them, in order to open fire at drivers. He also barred shooting at vehicles whose occupants are fleeing from agents. A deadly threat, which would justify use of force, does not “include a moving vehicle merely...

.... Jay Paterno was on the field with his dad as an assistant coach at Penn State. Now he wants to be lieutenant governor. So when he sat down with KDKA political editor Jon Delano for his first TV interview since announcing, the basic question was--why? "Having had a career in education for two decades, education is an issue I fell very passionately about... I felt like a lot of different people talked about doing a lot of different things politically, and I looked at it and thought this is where I can do the most good for the most...

Every Republican likes to think he or she is the next Ronald Reagan. Some who say this do so for lack of their own ideas and agenda. Reagan was a great leader and President. But too often people make him into something he wasn’t in order to serve their own political purposes.

March 10, 2014, 12:38 pm Obama drops Medicare changes By Elise Viebeck The Obama administration is abandoning a surprise plan to alter Medicare drug coverage rules after it was almost unanimously panned by Congress and K Street. Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner alerted lawmakers Monday that her agency would not finalize regulations giving insurers more leeway to limit the number of drugs they cover for Medicare beneficiaries. Critics argued that making the change, which the administration said would save money, would have hampered seniors' access to necessary medications Democrats had worried the issue could have hurt them in the midterm elections....

One of the two men who boarded the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with a stolen passport has been identified by police. Investigators from Malaysia and the United States have been examining closed-circuit television feeds from Kuala Lumpur airport and biometric data on the two stolen passports in an attempt to understand whether the men were trying to enter Europe illegally, or whether they had more sinister motives. Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the head of Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation, said the causes of the disappearance remained an "unprecedented mystery". He said he could not reveal the nationalities of the men...

First Ukraine, then the Bering Strait? Sen. Lindsey Graham joked Monday that the U.S. might need to watch out for Russian President Vladimir Putin on our own turf if things continue. “I just hope we don’t lose Alaska. The more [President Barack] Obama talks to Putin the worse we do,” the South Carolina Republican cracked on “Kilmeade and Friends” on Fox News Radio. Appearing on the show with his frequent partner in foreign policy, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Graham said the situation in Ukraine is a “defining moment” for Obama and he needs to rally Europe to stand up to...

An Iranian businessman known only as Mr Ali is understood to have booked the tickets for the two passengers using the stolen passports of the missing Malaysian Airlines plane, it has emerged.... A Thai travel agent who arranged the tickets for the two passengers has now said she had booked them on the flight via Beijing because they were the cheapest tickets, it has been reported. The travel agent in the resort of Pattaya said an Iranian business contact she knew only as 'Mr Ali' had asked her to book tickets for the two men on March 1. She had...

Paper reveals Iranian-link in ticket purchase for passengers with stolen passports The Malaysian Insider 3 hours ago The Financial Times exclusively reported that a Thai travel agent who booked the tickets for the men said she had been asked to make the travel arrangements by an Iranian contact. Travel agent Benjaporn Krutnait, booked the tickets through a business contact whom she only knew as "Mr Ali". She said that his first request to book cheap tickets to Europe for the two men was made on March 1. She told The Financial Times that it was quite common for people to...

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has issued a press release detailing what it says are “multiple errors” in a report by Orlando ABC affiliate WFTV. Mario Boone was the reporter on a story the FDLE called “Rape DNA kit backlogs continue to drown FDLE crime lab.” The story aired on the station’s 6:00 pm. news Wednesday night. In its statement, the FDLE said WFTV’s report suggests the agency is ill equipped to handle a growing number of rape cases and may cause rape victims to be reluctant to report the crime because they don’t think the agency can process...

Israel is displaying the weapons cache from the Iranian shipment to Gaza on Monday, in a bid to show the international community the 'true face' behind the Islamic Republic. The IDF spokesperson's office announced Sunday that the Klos C ship, which docked in Eilat over the weekend, has been unloaded and all the contents examined. The list includes: 40 M-302 rockets, with a range of 90 to 160 km; 181 mortar shells, 122 mm caliber; about 400,000 bullets, 7.62 caliber - which are usually used in Kalashnikov-type assault rifles.

Dozens of journalists, most of them foreign, attended a weapons exhibit and press conference on Monday afternoon, in which the arms seized on the Klos C vessel were put on public display. In his address to the press, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that in confiscating the shipment, "we have exposed the truth behind Iran's fake smiles," adding that this was something that the "international community doesn't want us" to do. "The world needs to awaken from its state of illusion and prevent Iran from acquiring the capability to create nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said. "The international community's decision to ignore...

Charlie Crist, the Republican-turned-Democrat running to reclaim the governorship of Florida, said that he doesn’t think the Affordable Care Act has “irreparably harmed” Floridians, and, in fact, “I think it’s been great.” Crist called health care a “civil right,” saying, “People need to have shelter, they need food, they need water, they need health care, and they deserve it.” When CNN’s Candy Crowley asked him about those who have undoubtedly lost their health care because of Obamacare, Crist said that’s “exactly why we have the Affordable Care Act. Exactly why is to make sure that they don’t lose it in...

The first Rasmussen Reports look at Colorado’s likely 2014 U.S. Senate race finds that it's a dead heat. A statewide telephone survey of Likely Colorado Voters shows incumbent Democrat Mark Udall with 42% of the vote, while his leading Republican challenger Cory Gardner earns 41%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and 13% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) (Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Colorado was...

Last week, I warned that the next step for Russia after seizing the Crimea over the status of ethnic Russians would take place in the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. All it would take, I argued, would be for Moscow to foment unrest in those ethnic-Russian communities, antagonize the governments in both states, and then insist that Russia had to intervene to protect them. More than a quarter of the population in both countries consist of ethnic Russians, while in Ukraine it only came to 18%.Now it looks like Moscow will skip over the unrest pretext and demand the...

Yes, government waste, fraud and abuse are the triplet children of incompetence, greed and unbridled ambition. But these sins of public trust begin and end with dishonesty. And Joseph E. Schmitz has seen a lot of lying by the government to taxpayers in his lengthy legal career. Schmitz, who served as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense from 2002-05, in an interview with Watchdog.org said, “no political party has a monopoly on waste, fraud and abuse and corruption.” But he said he has seen some troubling patterns of deceit in the Obama administration. Exhibit A, according to the...

The church served as a school when there was no school in the area 30 years ago. Now villagers use it as a hayloft and expect officials to start restoration. DHA Photo A historical structure in the eastern province of Van, which once was an Armenian church, has been converted into a hayloft after serving as a school for some time. Villagers fill the former church in the Korlu village of the Çatak district, 30 kilometers from Van, with hay, grass, cowpat and wood, but they have personally appealed to authorities to renovate it. Considering the villagers’ request, Van Culture...

....Al Sharpton has led a group of several hundred people on a march to the state Capitol to protest Florida's "stand your ground" law. Among the people who joined them Monday were Trayvon Martin's father and the family of Marissa Alexander, who was sentenced to 20 years for firing a gun near her estranged husband.

Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Iranian Middleman Asked Thai Agent to Book Tickets on Stolen Passports By Gianluca Mezzofiore March 10, 2014 12:24 PM While the search for the missing Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight continues, the mystery surrounding the two passengers who used stolen passports to board flight MH370 intensifies. The Financial Times exclusively reported that the Thai travel agency that booked the tickets for the men had been asked to by an Iranian middleman. It is fairly common for fraudulent documents to be used on regional flights for illegal immigration or drug smuggling but the fact that the aircraft...

During a filibuster-style radio interview in Milwaukee Friday, senior Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) charged that the State of Texas as a whole had a tendency to discriminate against minority voters and should be placed back under Holder Justice Department supervision thanks to his proposed legislation. After the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act—a policy that held a number of southern states like Texas and other jurisdictions structurally discriminatory toward minorities until proven otherwise—Rep. Sensenbrenner vowed to revive the law. When pressed to justify his desire to again empower the Justice...

Five men accused of torturing and murdering three Christian missionaries in 2007 have been recently released on the condition of wearing electronic bracelets, a Turkish court has ruled, after the suspects’ time in detention while on trial exceeded the new legal limits. Five suspects: Emre Günaydın, Cuma Özdemir, Hamit Çeker, Salih Gürler and Abuzer Yıldırım, walked free from their high-security prison in Malatya on March 7. German missionary Tilman Ekkehart Geske and Turkish converts Necati Aydın and Uğur Yüksel had their throats slit at the Zirve Publishing House in April 2007 in the eastern province of Malatya after being tied...

Transformers are the most vulnerable components in the power grid and they are under attack. The main components in our power grid distribution system are transformers. They step up the generated voltage to a higher level for more efficient transport over very long lines. Then they step the voltage back down in several stages for final consumption. These transformers are located at the power plants and thousands of substations. They are big and right out in the open. Weather does not bother them, but bullets do. They are the weak links in our power grid. Last year someone decided to...

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday proposed Andrew Schapiro as the new ambassador to the Czech Republic.... Like the present ambassador to Prague, Norman Eisen, Schapiro stands close to Obama. They studied together at the Harvard University ....

I like what Allen West said; "What I saw missing from CPAC was an understanding that Americans hunger for a particular image. Americans thought Obama possessed it — an image of concerned and caring leadership. It is an image that exemplifies the best of America and reflects the triumph of the indomitable American individual spirit. It does not spring from numbers and detailed calculations. It is conveyed by someone Americans believe they can invite into their homes who cares for them and their future. The image should not be of someone who offers handouts, but if there is no compelling...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raided EP Armory, in Bakersfield, California Friday, along with owner Chris Cook's home. Details at this point are still very thin, but Cook says that agents indicated that they are looking for "illegal guns." From ABC 23 News: The ATF was not able to provide information on the on-going investigation. Grahm Barlowe with the ATF declined to comment on why the store was targeted or exactly what agents were looking for.Cook said agents told him they were looking for illegal firearms. EP Armory is known mostly for its innovative "80% complete" AR-15...

FreedomWorks activists across Georgia celebrate as the bill moves to the State Senate Washington, DC- FreedomWorks activists across the state of Georgia celebrate this week after the Georgia State House passed a bill that effectively nullifies ObamaCare. The bill, H.B. 707 passed with an overwhelming 115-59 majority and travels now to the State Senate, where a solid Republican majority should be able to pass the bill. The legislation effectively nullifies ObamaCare by stopping state and local officials from assisting in the law’s implementation in any way. This would stop Medicaid expansion in the state, stop the health insurance exchange, and...

TMZ, the Hollywood gossip site, couldn’t contain its disgust. And when you watch it, you probably won’t be able to either.“It” is the video of pop sensation Justin Bieber giving a deposition last week after one of his bodyguards was accused of roughing up a photographer. TMZ obtained the four-and-a-half hour video and boiled it down to some of its worst moments, calling it “just unreal.” At some points, Bieber’s comments defy explanation and logic as he fights with the lawyer asking him questions.In fact, one of the videos eventually shows Bieber storming out to take a break after being...

A national union that represents 300,000 low-wage hospitality workers charges in a new report that Obamacare will slam wages, cut hours, limit access to health insurance and worsen the very “income equality” President Obama says he is campaigning to fix. Unite Here warned that due to Obamacare's much higher costs for health insurance than what union workers currently pay, the result will be a pay cut of up to $5 an hour. "If employers follow the incentives in the law, they will push families onto the exchanges to buy coverage. This will force low-wage service industry employees to spend $2.00,...

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Democrats and Republicans alike say the 113th Congress is shaping up to be the worst ever. Veteran lawmakers are used to partisanship and stalemate, but they say Capitol Hill has sunk to a new dysfunctional low. Congress has in some ways already closed for business until after the mid-term election. Any laws made between now and November will be minor. President Obama’s “year of action” has started slowly and could end up as a punchline. Congressional approval ratings have hit all-time lows. The relationships between congressional Republicans and Obama as well as between Democratic and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill...

The Lord bless you, and keep you: The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you: the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give You peace. Numbers 6: 24-26

The attack on biblical creation in UK schools continues by Phil Robinson Published: 9 March 2014 (GMT+10) CMI have frequently published articles regarding the unbalanced way in which creationism is dealt with at Government level, and in some instances banned in the UK education system.1,2,3,4 Only a few weeks ago, we ran with an article, appealing to End bad science and discrimination in education policies. The attacks are relentless and display a level of aggressive intolerance that is hard to stomach, coming as they do from the self-proclaimed ‘voices of reason’. Four recent news stories from the UK demonstrate the...

Republicans should learn from Pope Francis how to better communicate their message, Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, argued Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Republicans focus too much of their message on attracting business owners rather than workers, attacking President Barack Obama and explaining what they are against rather than what they are for, Santorum claimed. Instead, Santorum urged Republicans to reach out to those who are hurting and to talk about how their policies will help them. And to do that, learn from Pope Francis. "I think we need to take a lesson...

Clearwater, Florida (CNN) -- It's for just one congressional seat for about eight months, but Tuesday's special election in Florida has taken on huge political significance.National Republicans are framing Tuesday's special election as a referendum on Obamacare. But their message -- plus a flood of outside spending by Democrats focused on the issue of Social Security -- is drowning out other issues in the race, Republican candidate David Jolly says.His Democratic opponent, Alex Sink, isn't shying away from the health care debate, touting the law's benefits and saying she's open to improvements.Both parties are looking at this race as a...

Inquiry head Bernard Acho Muna said he hoped the presence of investigators in CAR would help prevent a genocide. The UN Security Council ordered the inquiry in December to identify suspects who could be prosecuted for the violence. Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict between Muslim and Christian militias. ... Tens of thousands of Muslims have fled as Christian militias have stepped up their attacks since the forced resignation of CAR's first Muslim ruler, Michel Djotodia, in January. ... The militias claim to be taking revenge for atrocities committed by mainly Muslim rebels after Mr Djotodia seized...

A new campaign that seeks to pressure the Jewish campus group Hillel into partnering with anti-Israel organizations is being hailed as a way to “a “liberate young Jews from the vice grip of Zionism” by anti-Zionist activist Max Blumenthal. Blumenthal, who recently wrote a book that compared Israel with the Third Reich, praised the new campus movement “Open Hillel” during a speech at Brandeis University, according to video posted by a group called Safe Hillel. “There is a movement afoot, an organic movement on campuses now … which I consider to be a movement to liberate young Jews, from the...

>The latest gun control law in Connecticut has crossed a very frightening line. A standoff has been created between the government and tens of thousands of gun owners now considered felons. It marks the beginning of an Orwellian new phase. Gun owners saw it coming, as evidenced by their recent adoption in recent years of the defiant expression “molon labe.” The phrase originated from Spartan General-King Leonidas, who reportedly responded with “Come and get them!” to Persian Emperor Xerxes’ demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans fought valiantly, but were ultimately defeated. With...

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced alleged lawlessness by far-right activists in eastern Ukraine, a statement likely to trigger alarms in Ukraine about possible Russian intervention there. Ukraine's foreign minister said Monday his country already feels like it's almost in a state of war after Russian forces took effective control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. A referendum has been called there for Sunday on whether the region should split off and seek to become part of Russia. Pro-Russia sentiment is also high in Ukraine's east and there are fears Russia could seek to incorporate that area as well. The Kremlin statement...

Their frustration had been mounting for weeks. But by late January national Republicans had had it with David Jolly, their candidate in Tuesday’s nationally watched Florida congressional special election. The candidate had just told the state’s top political reporter that he disagreed with an ad the party was airing against his Democratic opponent — a spot paid for with the nearly $500,000 the GOP had already spent on Jolly’s behalf....

Listen Live: Sound Off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9 a.m. to noon ET (Daily Thread)Sound Off Connecticut is a popular conservative/libertarian call in talk show hosted by Jim Vicevich weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon ET. Although based in Connecticut, the show welcomes callers from all over the United States! This is your chance to sound off America! Call into the show toll free (800) 966-9842! Listen to the LIVE AUDIO STREAM at http://wtic.com - it's free and NO registration is required! If you're in southern New England listen over the air to WTIC 1080 AM, the 50,000 watt...

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has thickened somewhat as family members of passengers have reported mobile phones ringing, but nobody answering. International Business Times reports that 19 families have signed a joint statement saying that passengers' cell phones connected after the flight had been reported missing. In each case, the phone would ring, but the call would be hung up. The sister of one of the Chinese passengers among the 239 people on board the missing flight rang his phone live on TV twice at 11:40 on Sunday morning and heard it ringing. She called...