Free Republic

Co-hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough tied the knot in a secret wedding ceremony officiated by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) over the weekend, Vanity Fair reported on Sunday. The celebrity morning television hosts held an intimate ceremony attended by a handful of people on Saturday in Washington's National Archives, the first time a wedding has been held there, according to the magazine. They reportedly chose the quiet post-Thanksgiving date to keep the wedding under wraps. “We wanted it to be really small and simple and not what you expected from Mika and Joe,” Brzezinski told Vanity...

On her recent visit to China, Michelle Obama said nothing about the suffering of women who have undergone forced abortions there. Could part of the reason she did not venture to say anything be that unwanted, coerced abortion, though not as overtly sponsored, is becoming an increasing threat in this country? CHINA_ABORTIONSocial mores change. Shotgun weddings have recently been declared a thing of the past, yet like a force- sucking vacuum, that void was filled by what amounts to shotgun abortions. Cultural expectations have morphed sufficiently that fertility is now conventionally viewed as life leaching. Rivaling the dictate to wed,...

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has welcomed her second grandchild, Radar Online reported Monday. Palin's son, Track, and his new wife Britta (nee Hanson) became parents over the weekend to a baby girl, name Kyla Grace. Track, 22, married his 21-year-old high-school sweetheart in May in a small ceremony in Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

GERING, Neb. - Instead of a wedding ring, one Scottsbluff bride found herself in handcuffs. Scotts Bluff County deputies arrested 31-year-old Dianne Carnes on Tuesday afternoon, just after her courthouse wedding was to have started. Her offense? Officials say a day earlier, Carnes threatened a woman who served on the jury of her felony driving under license suspension trial. Prosecutors say Carnes was caught driving last year while her license was suspended for a drunken driving conviction. Carnes was found guilty of driving under suspension Monday. Officials say an arrest warrant was issued Monday for Carnes after she threatened the...

In an interview aboard Air Force One last week with Ron Hutcheson of McClatchy Newspapers, President Bush said: "I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul. Immigration has been the lifeblood of a lot of our country's history. And I am worried that a backlash to newcomers would cause our country to lose its great capacity to assimilate newcomers. And I believe that a newly arrived adds to the vigor and the entrepreneurial spirit, and enhances the American Dream." These sentiments, coupled with Bush’s suggestion that opponents of his compromised immigration compromise "don't want to do what's right for America,"...

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - A woman said she still plans to marry the man who shot her in the groin and then held her hostage in his family's garage for six days. Tina Marie Stebbins revealed her intentions in a letter released Monday as her boyfriend, Christian Leroy Lindblad, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting her in June 2002. "I love Christian today as deeply as I loved him before this awful thing happened to us," Stebbins wrote in a victim impact statement. "We are soul mates." She added: "I want to tell you all that I...

A man shot and killed his new wife less than a day and a half after their wedding and then turned the gun on himself, police said. State police at Lamar said Frank W. Shope II, 34, married Lori Ann Spangler, 35, on Thursday afternoon, and they lived at the Camelot Estates Trailer Court in Mill Hall, Clinton County. They were in a local bar Friday night but began to argue, police said. The dispute escalated after they got home, and a concerned neighbor called police. Just before officers arrived, Shope got a .38 caliber revolver from his vehicle parked...