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A dozen wedding guests were beaten, tased, pepper sprayed, and arrested. GALVESTON, TX — More than a dozen wedding guests were brutalized by police officers during a raid on a wedding party at a hotel. Cops fired tasers, used batons, and generously applied pepper spray to the guests of a bride and groom hours after their wedding. Among them was former pro-baseball star Brandon Backe, who said the shoulder injuries that he received from police caused his pitching career to end. After causing a gaping head wound, bruises, hair pulled out, a broken nose, and pepper spray on numerous individuals,...

WASHINGTON — The United States is said to have disclosed that Saudi King Abdullah was dying. (Snip) The sources said the photograph was taken by White House personnel during Obama’s meeting with the Saudi king outside Riyad on March 28.“The Saudis specifically did not want any photograph that showed Abdullah with the tube,” a source said. “But there was a White House photographer that took the picture for what he said was history.” The photograph was said to have been relayed to members of the White House press corps. Within a day, an image of the Saudi king with the...

Despite major changes in public opinion in recent years, Rev. Franklin Graham, son of perhaps the most famous American preacher of all time, Billy Graham, reiterated his strong opposition to gay marriage and gay adoption today on ABC's "This Week." As a part of a special Easter week discussion on religion, Graham told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that gays could go to heaven if they repent.

Conservatives slammed the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College's role in presidential elections, saying that the National Popular Vote Compact circumvents the Constitution, saying it resembled President Barack Obama's abuse of the law through his extensive use of executive orders. "It is pretty startling," Bill Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV this week. "If they want to make the case for the popular election of presidents and a Constitutional amendment, they should make the case.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) fought back against speculation that Democrats would lose seats in a midterm election that would be a referendum against President Obama, but she said each race must be run in a way that best benefits the candidate.Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," the Democratic National Committee chairman said Republicans are fighting among themselves, giving Democrats an opening to grab more seats."Republicans are mired in a civil war where the tea party has won, and they are consistently nominating the most extreme candidates," she said. "And we're on offense in states as well. So you've got...

This is the thread where folks swap ideas on savings and investment --here's a list of popular investing links that freepers have posted here and tomorrow morning we'll go on with our-- Open invitation continues always for idea-input for the thread, this being a joint effort works well.   Keywords: financial, WallStreet, stockmarket. Here's what others are saying about what's going on-- Gold / Silver / Copper futures - weekly outlook: April 21 - 25 Investing.com - Gold prices ended the week sharply lower on Thursday, falling below the $1,300 level as indications that the U.S. economic recovery is progressing dampened...

Just when you think you know a state ... Hours after an outpouring of support for gay basketball player Derrick Gordon had sent a message that tolerance reigns in Massachusetts, John Ashcroft came to Amherst on Wednesday. The former attorney general of President George W. Bush spent his University of Massachusetts visit fending off hecklers who called him a hyprocrite and a war criminal among other things. I am not here to defend Ashcroft. I am here to dispute hypocrisy, a label that becomes attached to university communities such as UMass when freedom of speech and opinion is treated as...

We don’t know who’s right in the case of the Nevada rancher vs. the federal government. But we do know that the government is losing the public relations battle, and for good reason. When the government moved to seize Cliven Bundy’s cattle for his failure to pay grazing fees on public land, a growing group of supporters came to his defense – literally. On April 12, after a tense and heated standoff with them, heavily armed federal agents released the cattle back and retreated. The situation was eerily reminiscent of past ill-fated federal standoffs, such as Ruby Ridge and Waco,...

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk believes Russian President Vladimir Putin "has a dream to restore the Soviet Union" — and Putin realizing that dream would be disastrous for the rest of the world. "Every day, he goes further and further,” Yatsenyuk said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press.” “And God knows where is the final destination.”

Welcome to 2014: • Our Phones - Wireless • Cooking - Fireless • Cars - Keyless • Food – Fatless • Tires –Tubeless • Dress – Sleeveless • Youth – Jobless • Leaders – Shameless • Relationships – Meaningless • Attitudes – Careless • Babies – Fatherless • Feelings – Heartless • Education – Valueless • Children – Mannerless • Country – Godless We are SPEECHLESS, Congress is CLUELESS, Our President is WORTHLESS ! GOD HELP US !

Today, in the year 2064, as we look back over the last 50 years, it might seem as if the Abundance Revolution was inevitable, since so much wealth was involved. After all, it was wealth just waiting to be unleashed. Yet paradoxically, on the eve of the Abundance Revolution, many of America’s leaders, on the right as well as the left, were preaching a strict doctrine of overall austerity. Indeed, as we look back and study the events of 2014, we can see the results of the Green elite’s ideologically-driven effort to squelch even the relatively small amount of prosperity...

HARTFORD — A Newbury Street resident shot at two men — hitting one — after they menaced him, rammed his car and pulled a gun on him early Saturday, police said. The wounded suspect was hospitalized and the other was charged with several crimes. The Newbury Street man who fired the shots is considered a victim and will not be charged, police said. He was not injured, and had a valid permit for his pistol, according to investigators. The man, a National Guard staff sergeant who requested his name not be used to protect him and his family, tells Fox...

A group of armed militia and protesters, some sporting nametags reading "domestic terrorist," remain camped out on a cattle ranch in Nevada, where they have been purportedly defending the property since a tense showdown ended with the federal government last week. A 20-year struggle between rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management over decades of alleged illegal cattle grazing on public land ended last Sunday, with the government backing down from a controversial week-long cattle round-up. The BLM defused the standoff, citing safety concerns for its employees and the protesters, some of whom were on horseback and others...

TORONTO — Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the boxer whose wrongful murder conviction became an international symbol of racial injustice, has died at 76. John Artis, a longtime friend and caregiver, said Carter died in his sleep Sunday. Carter had been stricken with prostate cancer in Toronto, the New Jersey native’s adopted home. Carter spent 19 years in prison for three murders at a tavern in Paterson, N.J., in 1966. He was convicted alongside Artis in 1967 and again in a new trial in 1976. Carter was freed in November 1985 when his convictions were set aside after years of appeals and...

The Duke lacrosse case was a spectacular scandal – a cause célèbre that had the country abuzz about race, class and gender. Three wealthy Duke students, all of them white, were charged with raping a poor black woman during a spring break party at a scruffy rental house in Durham. Then the whole mess imploded in real time, in the national media, due to prosecutorial misconduct. North Carolina, of all places in America, was perhaps the most fertile soil for a case that ended with the state attorney general declaring the three players innocent and state regulators disbarring the prosecutor,...

Sunday on CNN´s "Reliable Sources," host Brian Stelter was very critical of former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson´s reporting skills because she has spoken about her experience at CBS News where she witnessed as a common practice the killing of stories unfriendly to the Obama administration. (Snip) Attkisson: I do think, again, that's a campaign by those who really want to controversialize the reporting. I do so you wouldn't listen to it, because if people took the few minutes to do a Google search, you would see the dozens and dozens of stories. I've done that were, in many cases, complemented...

Cliven Bundy's standoff with the BLM is over a paltry monthly grazing fee. But it's also over more - the idea of the public interest.Perhaps the most remarkable feature of American democracy is the magnificent estate of public land that it reserved from the very beginning for the use of all citizens, rich or poor. There is nothing like it in the democracies of Europe, which came into being with nations already carved up into private fiefdoms. The Great Idea that hundreds of millions of acres of forests, deserts, rivers and prairies should be owned by, and managed for, the...

Let’s consider for a moment the consequences of giving seventh-century savages who are hellbent on destroying 21st civilization advanced 21st century weaponry. Ponder that, if you will. How many tens of thousands of jihad attacks must we suffer to face reality? How many millions of non-Muslims and secular Muslims have to die in order for us to face the truth? Advanced weapons to these devout Muslims waging jihad — nuts, I tell ya. The only people we should be arming are the religious minorities in Syria. The Kurds have established an independent state. Arm them. Protect them. What is Obama’s...

This is what we have come to. “US Synagogue network urges Jews not to walk home alone,” By Sam Sokol, Jerusalem Post, April 19, 2014 (thanks to Jack) Following anti-Semitic shooting in Kansas, US Jewish community on high alert; Police increase presence at Jewish sites in New York and Washington. The National Council of Young Israel has urged synagogue goers not to walk home alone during the final days of the Passover holiday. The security precaution is one of several emailed to those affiliated with the national modern orthodox synagogue network this week in response to the recent shooting attack...

When the anti-Jewish flyer story broke, I said that we could not be sure which side had distributed it, but it was certain that both sides brought Jew-hatred into the fight. I also said that emergency emigration of all Jews should begin at once. The Jewish people suffered untold horrors In the Ukraine. Not one Jew should have stayed after a million of Jews were slaughtered in the country during WWII. At 2 AM, Saturday morning, the Nikolayev synagogue in Ukraine was firebombed multiple times….Nikolayev has a community of 15,000 Jews. And back in February, the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in...

*Famed film director Spike Lee has expressed his desire to see the Trayvon Martin story told on the big screen. During an interview with theGrio, Lee commended 27-year-old new director Ryan Coogler for bringing his acclaimed independent film, “Fruitvale Station,” the Oscar Grant story, to the big screen. He expressed his admiration for the film while stating that the film business isn’t built in favor of young directors like Coogler to succeed. “Love it…. It’s great,” Lee said of Fruitvale Station. “But it’s something that I have been doing for 15 year [sic]. I teach film. That is my job...

The number of schools in the British city of Birmingham being investigated over fears that children are being radicalized by extremist Muslims attempting to seize control of educational institutions has now increased to 25. A couple of months ago it was four. The big increase means the UK government has been complacent over an extremist Islamist plot whose goal is nothing less than to take over control of schools in Britain. Concerns about how some of the 430 schools in the city are being run first emerged last year in a leaked anonymous letter which outlined how to implement what...

By the time Gov. Brian Sandoval criticized the Bureau of Land Management for creating an “atmosphere of intimidation” while rounding up Cliven Bundy’s cattle, the militias were already on their way to Bunkerville, ground zero for what turned into an armed confrontation between gun-toting citizens and federal officers. As governor, Sandoval had every right to weigh in and try to tamp down BLM’s tactics. It worked. Under political pressure and the threat of violence, the agency shut down the weeklong roundup April 12 and released several hundred “trespass cattle” that had roamed the federal public land for 20 years while...

Taliban leader among 5 rebels killed in Ghazni mosque explosion A local Taliban commander was among five militants killed following an explosion inside a mosque in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan. Local government officials said the militants were killed while they were making an improvised explosive device (IED) to carry out a roadside bomb explosion. Deputy provincial governor Mohammad Ali Ahmadi said the incident took place on Saturday morning in western party of Ghazni city. Ahmadi further added that the Taliban commander was recognized as Mullah Sadiq who was killed along with four other militants following the explosion. The Taliban...

A New York City taxi driver is accused of avoiding bridge tolls more than 3,000 times in two years by tailgating cars in front of him and slipping through the tollbooth before the barrier came down, prosecutors said Thursday. The 69-year-old driver, Rodolfo Sanchez, is charged with third-degree larceny, theft of services and fifth-degree possession of stolen property, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

What is the rule of law, anyway? Sylvia Thompson April 20, 2014 Talking heads and elitists from both the left and right of the political spectrum are decrying that Cliven Bundy (the rancher who recently defied the federal government) must follow the "rule of law." Why should he? Barack Obama, the President of the United States does not follow the rule of law. Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, pays no heed to the rule of law. Why, then, must an average citizen? Recently, a Congressional Committee called upon a group of legal and policy professionals to...

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat, brushed off concerns Sunday over vulnerable Senate Democrats running against the Obama administration, saying that they “have to run their own race.”“What’s the case is that each of these candidates have to run their own race,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They have to talk about and focus on the issues that are important to their constituents.”By refusing to upbraid the candidates, at least publicly, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, who serves as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, appeared to be giving leeway to Democrats in tight races to disagree publicly...

President Reagan’s Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Easter and Passover on April 2, 1983. Reagan talks about freedom and tyranny. I bet Obama’s on the golf course.

New York City has roasted a man to death. Jerome Murdough, like a very large share of New York City’s homeless, was mentally ill. According to his family, he suffered from both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, along with what his mother gently describes as “beer problems.” He was a former Marine who was in and out of homeless shelters, hospitals, and the occasional jail cell, with eleven misdemeanor convictions for trespassing, public drinking, drug possession, and the like. During what was an unusually bitter winter in New York, Mr. Murdough sought shelter in an unsecured stairwell in a Harlem housing...

Two brothers were working to restore a Detroit home this week when their lives were suddenly put into extreme danger. The two men and their friend had just pulled up the home’s driveway in their van. That’s when one of the brothers told WBJK-TV a “young black male, about 30s … walked up to the driver’s window.” “[He] had a little grin on his face, little smirk on his face. And he pulled a gun, pointed it right in my face. He pulled the trigger,” the other brother, who was not identified, told the local Fox affiliate. The trigger was pulled twice....

Thousands of Ukrainians chanted “Putin is a douche!” (Poo-teen hooy-loh!) at a packed soccer stadium.

John Paul Stevens says he thinks it’s appropriate for Supreme Court justices to factor in political considerations when weighing a decision to retire. Here’s what the former justice tells ABC’s “This Week”: “I think certainly it’s natural and an appropriate thing to think about your successor.” …

The GOP is making a bold play for a U.S. Senate seat in reliably Democratic Oregon, where a Republican hasn’t been elected to a statewide office in more than a decade. Republicans back in Washington think they’ve found the right candidate in Monica Wehby, a children’s brain surgeon who’s raised more than $1 million and put her early opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care law at the center of her campaign. […] Wehby faces four other Republicans, most notably state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, a lawyer who’s promoting his conservative credentials and his experience representing a district that,...

Matt Rosendale's shoots down a drone in a Campaign Ad. Link..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBcBx1XFU4&feature=share

Environmental groups cringe as some trade unions support oil and gas drilling, pipelines PITTSBURGH (AP) -- After early complaints that out-of-state firms got the most jobs, some local construction trade workers and union members in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia say they're now benefiting in a big way from the Marcellus and Utica Shale oil and gas boom.That vocal support from blue-collar workers complicates efforts by environmentalists to limit the drilling process known as fracking."The shale became a lifesaver and a lifeline for a lot of working families," said Dennis Martire, the mid-Atlantic regional manager for the Laborers' International Union,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.</p>

April 20, 2014 Is there an ethics investigation in Rep. Cummings’ future over IRS emails with Lerner? Grae Stafford VIDEO-Daily Caller's Ginni Thomas interviews True The Vote attorney Cleta MitchellCongressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, could be facing an ethics investigation if Cleta Mitchell has her way.Mitchell — a partner at Foley & Lardner and the legal counsel for True the Vote in its case against the IRS for its targeting of conservative groups — is pursuing Cummings over his conduct in the wider investigation.“[Cummings] announced within 30 days after the IRS...

File this under the early bird gets the worm. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this week that he plans to spend $50 million of his vast wealth to create a “gun safety” group that he hopes will “outmuscle” the NRA, according to The New York Times. But the new group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” was a little too slow on the draw when it came to getting control of the group name on Facebook, with pro-gun activists acquiring the name first, BuzzFeed reported. A Facebook page has been set up under the same name as Bloomberg’s new...

Nevada assemblywoman Michele Fiore clashed with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes regarding rancher Cliven Bundy’s conflict with the federal government on Friday. As Hayes pressed Fiore about her position on the standoff, she relentlessly criticized the government’s handling of the situation. “Why are you there near the Bundy ranch tonight celebrating?” Hayes asks. “Questioning why the heck the federal government felt the need to come in armed to collect an unpaid bill. I mean, that was pretty bold and blatant,” Fiore said. “I mean, generally when my — when our federal government comes in armed, we’re expecting a bigger problem… We will...

Alert shoppers are accustomed to watching food prices go up and down. But a string of forces—from droughts to diseases—is raising the cost of a trip to the grocery store at a rapid clip. And it looks like it will be a while before the price pressure eases. Some of that pressure is coming from California—the source of roughly half the nation's fruits and vegetables—where a long-running drought is forcing farmers and ranchers to cut production. After the driest year on record, large sections of farmland are expected to lay fallow this year as the Golden State copes with an...

John C. Houbolt, an engineer whose contributions to the U.S. space program were vital to NASA's successful moon landing in 1969, has died. He was 95. Houbolt died Tuesday at a nursing home in Scarborough, Maine, from complications from Parkinson's disease, his son-in-law Tucker Withington, of Plymouth, Mass., confirmed Saturday. As NASA describes on its website, while under pressure during the U.S.-Soviet space race, Houbolt was the catalyst in securing U.S. commitment to the science and engineering theory that eventually carried the Apollo crew to the moon and back safely.

BUNDY RANCH | You saw his proof. Now meet BLM Whistleblower Rusty Hill who uncovered the corporations and shady land deals connected to Reid Bunkerville LLC, Zion Bank Corp, and BLM lands surrounding the Bundy properties.

For the past fortnight, Denis Pushilin, the prime minister of the temporary government of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk has presided, at least ostensibly, over a pro-Russian uprising that has seized town halls, police stations and other buildings in about ten towns across eastern Ukraine. Few people in Donetsk had heard of the diminutive, smartly dressed 32-year-old businessman until he emerged as a leader of the group that occupied the regional administration building here two weeks ago. Born and raised in Makeyevka, just outside Donetsk, he graduated from the local engineering college and came out of his national service...

Slowest start to #tornado season on record through 4/17 http://twitpic.com/e1huhr based on inflation adjusted tornado trends. https://twitter.com/wxbrad/status/457374046020440064

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Sunday that politics should be a factor in justices’ decisions on when to step down from the nation’s highest bench. “It’s an appropriate thing to think about,” Mr. Stevens said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “If you’re interested in the job and in the kind of work that’s done, you have to have an interest in who’s going to fill your shoes.” Some liberal experts have pressed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who at 81 is the oldest sitting justice on the court and has had health issues, to step down...

April 20, 2014, 11:51 am DNC head: Midterms not about Obama By Erik Wasson The midterm elections will not be a referendum on President Obama's performance in the White House, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman said Sunday. “No, absolutely not,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) told NBC's "Meet the Press." “These elections, particularly the Senate elections, are referendums on the candidates running.” NBC's David Gregory asked Wasserman Schultz if keeping the Senate and taking back the House are an uphill climb given the president's low poll numbers and the unpopularity of ObamaCare. Forty-nine percent of those polled in the most...

Should the U.S. keep ObamaCare? Yes No I don't know

Frazier Glenn Miller Called Hotline To Vent The notorious white supremacist charged with fatally shooting three people outside of Jewish community centers near Kansas City reportedly called a Jewish hotline weeks earlier to rant to a rabbi about “getting rid of every Jew.” Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, was connected to Rabbi Menachem Siegal, director of the United Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe and Asia when he called a hotline on March 30, the New York Post reported. Cross, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, blasted Siegal for raising money for Jews because they “cause all of the problems” and “destroyed...

Even if racism were wiped out tomorrow, we'd still need to address pervasive racial wealth inequality. Here's why Although the Civil Rights Act, the landmark legislation which just reached its 50th anniversary, made great strides in desegregating the economy, economic discrimination is still widespread, and anti-discrimination legislation alone can never rectify the economic damage inflicted upon blacks by slavery and our Jim Crow apartheid regime. The Civil Rights Act was a mild reform, all things considered, but one conservatives fought with vigor and one many conservatives are still bitter about to this day. When the Civil Rights Act passed in...

STOCKTON - Immigrants feed California, and divide it. Immigrants and the children of immigrants are among California's most beloved heroes (think astronaut Jose Hernandez, who completed some of his early higher education at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton) and yet are often treated under federal laws as reviled outcasts. Immigration, particularly accelerating waves of immigration from Mexico in recent decades, has shaped California in profound ways, providing the human labor to boost economic growth, defining the way we see our ethnic identities and coloring our political debates. And now, just as Latinos have become the state's largest ethnic group,...