Free Republic

During the vote that found Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, a hundered or so House Democrats staged a theatrical walkout in protest. The unintended effect was they seemed to have walked out on slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Evidence is starting to pour in that suggests that while the Obama administration may have won the battle by having health care reform declared constitutional, it may have lost the war where it concerns the president being re-elected in the fall.

we haven't lost..... now we just need to fight and be willing to die.....

On Tuesday night, thousands of Iranians looked up at the sky in the hopes of seeing the Pepsi logo appear on the moon. In the past few days, rumors had swelled on Iranian websites and social networks, saying that Pepsi Co. was going to shoot powerful lasers at the moon to display the brand’s colors on its surface. Some took this as a joke; others believed it. Either way, many went up on their roofs to inspect the moon at the announced time. Our Observers in Tehran tell us more.

July 1, 2012   Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24 God did not make death,nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.For he fashioned all things that they might have being;and the creatures of the world are wholesome,and there is not a destructive drug among themnor any domain of the netherworld on earth,for justice is undying.For God formed man to be imperishable;the image of his own nature he made him.But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,and they who belong to his company experience it. Responsorial Psalm Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6,...

Congress held Attorney General Eric Holder in both civil and criminal contempt yesterday, in historic bipartisan votes, for his refusal to provide subpoenaed documents in the Fast and Furious investigation. This has never happened before.  So what happens next? The first consequence will be that the last media outlets trying to protect the Obama Administration by refusing to report on the worst scandal in Justice Department history will be obliged to mention it, in considerably more detail than they would like. They'll try to bury the details as much as possible, and they will still absurdly describe Fast and Furious as...

An IRS probe into pro-Republican groups to determine whether they are violating their tax-exempt status by spending too much on partisan activities is a Nixonian move by a “reckless and ruthless administration,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells Newsmax.TV. McConnell was commenting on recent revelations that the IRS was looking into the 501(c)4 organizations. The groups, such as the Karl Rove-affiliated group Crossroads GPS, are tax-exempt because they are considered social welfare groups. The status allows them to keep donor lists private but the groups must limit their spending to issue ads designed to educate the public. Critics charge the...

White House salaries have jumped by nearly $5 million in the three years since Barack Obama became president, official figures show. The 468 people who work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue earn $37.8 million, the White House's annual report to Congress shows. That compares to $33.1 million in George W. Bush's last year in the Oval Office, an increase of 14.1 percent. The report was released at 4.39 p.m. Friday, a notorious time for dumping bad news just before a weekend. By statute it hhad a July 1 deadline. The White House payroll is up nearly 2 percent on last year...

Congress has six months to prevent the U.S. economy from falling off the so-called fiscal cliff. If Congress does not act, on Jan. 1, 2013 a mix of tax hikes and $1.2 trillion in budget cuts are set to take effect, which the Congressional Budget Office says will likely throw the country back into recession. Most economists agree that failing to act will have about a $600 billion drag on the economy in 2013. But little discussion has been given to the direct impact on jobs, particularly in the defense sector, which will suffer from half of the budget cuts....

His father had a face of stone and a hard glare. He has a mild gaze and a weak chin. But there the dissimilarity ends. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has proved himself as uncompromising as the late Hafez, who ran the Arab republic with an iron fist for 29 years and bequeathed a formidable, police-state dynasty to his son in 2000. Bashar was only 16 when Assad senior ordered one of the bloodiest atrocities in modern Arab history: the 1982 massacre of at least 10,000 Syrians in Hama to crush a revolt by Sunni Muslims. The repression worked. The lesson...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Protesters staged a demonstration on Purdue's campus Saturday calling on the university to rescind its appointment of Gov. Mitch Daniels as its next president. Organizers accused the school's board of trustees of skipping over more qualified candidates to recruit Daniels, who is set to take office when his term ends at the end of the year. "We are very offended at what seems to us sort of an inbred choice of a candidate who has a long history of hostility toward teachers and public education," said protester Aaron Hoover.

David Cameron has opened the door to a historic referendum on Britain’s future relationship with the European Union — declaring that voters need a “real choice”. The Prime Minister uses an article in The Sunday Telegraph to say that Britain is in danger of getting swamped by EU legislation and bureaucracy which he would like to see scrapped. He makes clear for the first time that changes will need the “full-hearted support of the British people” down the line and adds: “For me the two words 'Europe’ and 'referendum’ can go together.” Mr Cameron’s landmark move comes as Liam Fox,...

Kathleen Sebelius is the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is the text of the Obamacare bill. A text search of the document shows that the phrase “secretary shall” appears 1,005 times. Let’s take a look at some examples.

“Total collapse can’t happen in America because I don’t want it to. Plus, it has never happened before so it can’t happen. I feel warm and fuzzy about our future.” That is called, the “normalcy bias” and will end up killing many Americans when financial depression and inflation take control. When hyperinflation smacked Germany in the 1920s, Germans carried a bag full of German marks to purchase a loaf of bread. One family took a wheel barrow full of money to the grocery store for their weekly supplies but could not get the wheel barrow through the door. Leaving the...

Ten years ago my family adopted a stray, adult male cat from our local shelter. He took to me immediately, but would barely tolerate my kids. He flat-out hated my husband on sight and that never changed. He did form an uneasy truce with our dog. They basically agree to ignore each other. He's at least 12 now and the years have not been good for him. He's always been terribly nervous. He over-grooms to the point of self mutilation and there are months where his belly is completely bald. He spends his time under the bed. He moves through...

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) won on Friday a permanent injunction in the 17-year legal battle involving the Bronx Household of Faith and the NYC Board of Education. Religious groups will now be allowed to meet freely for worship services in public school facilities. "Churches that have been helping communities for years can continue to offer the hope that empty buildings can't," expressed ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence in a statement. "The court's order allows churches and other religious groups to meet for worship services in empty school buildings on weekends on the same terms as other groups. ADF will...

RABAT (Reuters) - Organizers of an all-gay cruise on Saturday blamed Moroccan officials for the cancellation of what would have been the first visit of its kind to a Muslim country, but the tourism minister denied the ship was banned and said its passengers were welcome. Cruise liner Holland America Line and trip organizer RSVP Vacations told the 2,100 holiday-makers aboard the MS Nieuw Amsterdam ship that the July 1 visit to Casablanca had been cancelled. "Our port agent in Casablanca has advised us that authorities in Morocco have -- despite previous confirmations -- now denied our scheduled visit," the...

I need some help identifying a movie. I just watched Au Revoir Les Infants with my wife and it reminded me of a very similar, but much, much better French film made in the 1970's. Google isn't helping. It's set in a Catholic boarding school in a small French town during the German occupation. In this movie, at least one of the students in Jewish, and the Germans never catch on, or if they do, they choose to feign ignorence. In Au Revoir three of the students are Jewish and they are betrayed by a fired employee of the school....

Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum gave a signal to social conservatives on Saturday: Mitt Romney's "message is sound. It's solid." On Saturday, Santorum's praise was warm. "The concern I had - I did, I was very frank about it - was that Governor Romney would track to the middle as so many Republican candidates have done, but I'm not seeing that," Santorum said. "I'm seeing him stand by those convictions that he articulated in the primaries and I'm hopeful."

NEW YORK, - A Salvador Dali drawing stolen from a New York gallery was returned by Express Mail -- and the thief e-mailed the tracking number, postal inspectors said. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, alerted by New York police, found the drawing Friday at Kennedy International Airport, The New York Times reported. "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio," an 11-by-14-inch drawing valued at $150,000, was stolen June 19 from a newly opened gallery on the Upper East Side, Venus Over Manhattan. Security cameras showed a man with a shopping bag who apparently just took the drawing off the wall and walked...