Free Republic

Is Your Stocks Portfolio Ready for What’s Going to Happen? Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013Jan 25, 2013 - 09:13 AM By: InvestmentContrarian Sasha Cekerevac writes: As corporate earnings season continues for S&P 500 companies, it is becoming quite evident that revenue growth is lacking across many sectors of the economy. However, we are continuing to see growth in corporate earnings per share. How is this possible? One method is through share buybacks. S&P 500 corporations, which are generating very high levels of cash, are buying back shares and reducing the number outstanding, which increases the corporate earnings-per-share level. From April...

Three weeks after announcing he would sell his struggling cable news channel, Current, to Al Jazeera — pocketing an estimated $100 million in profit — Al Gore skewered television news in an interview with BuzzFeed. "I think that the influence of television over the last half century has been harmful to the operations of our democracy," said Gore. "In the age of our founding, and for much of the history of the republic, crucial. Individuals could gain easy access to information and could express their own views. They can't do that on television." "They get plenty of information from it,...

Random checks happen at stations across country. Passengers catching the 9:30 a.m. Amtrak train from Austin to Dallas were met with an unexpected surprise when they got to the station. Transportation Security Administration agents, Austin police officers, and the Department of Homeland Security were all waiting for them. ... Random security checks are voluntary ... The random check takes about 10-15 minutes and happens hundreds of times a day at bus, train, and subway stations across the country.

Thanks to beefrank for making me aware of these new Glock commercials. The first is funny, while the second is unnerving and should, I think, be watched by every parent in America. Wrong Diner - Extended Version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsVCHE7ayPE Wrong Girl - Extended Version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2gCFOtaZPo

<p>A secret arsenal of guns and ammunition hidden in the wake of the Dunblane massacre have been found stashed behind a false wall by a builder renovating a house.</p> <p>Builder Simon Berni, 41, was shocked to discover a secret haul of more than 30 shotguns and pistols as well as hundreds of rounds of ammunition when he began working on a south Wales property.</p>

Vice President Biden says a mental health check on gun sales may have averted the 2007 mass shooting on Virginia Tech‘s campus. Biden’s comments came after a roundtable discussion in Richmond today that included experts involved with the gun control commission convened after the university tragedy. The vice president reported the panel had reached “pretty broad consensus” over what criteria they proposed should deny a sale, including “mental capacity.”

    ***** Tunes For Our Troops ***** ~ Support The Artists ~   Support the artists you hear throughout the Canteen! Click on the links below! Keep the music going! ArtistDirect l  Internet Radio l  AOL Music l  Sonique (Lycos) l  Real Radio Live365 l  971TheRiver  l  GotRadio  l  Wherehouse  l  Target  l Shoutcast AFRTS l  VH1 l XM Radio l  BET l  audiophile l  Virgin Radio l  Soma (Alternative) Acaza l AudioRealm l VH1 l  Yahoo! Launch Music l  Radio Disney l  Live-Radio Net ITunes l Amazon l Salsa Radio l MTV l CMT l Ticketmaster l...

For those of you who know me, you can pick your jaw up off the floor (after reading the title) and move on. There is a pseudo-discussion taking place all over America about gun ownership which consists of the actual “need” for firearms in citizens’ hands and limits that should be placed on American gun owners. As unlikely as it might seem, this is pure distraction. In an earlier life – the one the press refuses to report – Obama summarily declared that he believed Americans should not own guns. That declaration seems to have been forgotten by some who...

Senators Nearing Agreement On Broad Immigration Reform Proposal By Rosalind S. Helderman and David Nakamura January 25 A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, representing the most substantive bipartisan effort toward comprehensive legislation in years. The six members have met quietly since the November election, most recently on Wednesday. Congressional aides stressed there is not yet final agreement, but they have eyed next Friday as a target date for a possible public announcement. The talks mark the most in-depth negotiations involving members of both parties since a...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Here is video of Dianne Feinstein from “60 Minutes” in 1995, saying she wants guns confiscated Here is video of Dianne Feinstein from “60 Minutes” in 1995, saying she wants all guns confiscated. She stated:“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them – Mr. and Mrs. America turn them all in - I would have done it. I could not do that – the votes weren’t here.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blXkl9YVoHoIn 2004, when Barack Obama was an Illinois state Senator, he voted against allowing...

The Oscar winner, 48, was said to have accepted the Prometheus star's proposal over the Christmas (12) holidays, having dated on and off since 2008. However, a spokesperson for Tomei insists there is "no truth" to the wedding rumours, reports GossipCop.com. The Wrestler actress, who has previously been romantically linked to Robert Downey, Jr. and Lenny Kravitz, has previously claimed she did not believe in marriage, saying, "I'm not that big a fan of marriage as an institution and I don't know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings."

President Obama has called for stricter federal gun laws to combat recent shooting rampages, but a review of recent state laws by The Washington Times shows no discernible correlation between stricter rules and lower gun-crime rates in the states. States that ranked high in terms of making records available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System also tended to have tighter gun laws — but their gun-crime rates ranged widely. The same was true for states that ranked poorly on disclosure and were deemed to have much less stringent gun-possession laws. For example, New York, even before it approved...

DENVER - In contrast to typical Church doctrine, lawyers for a Catholic hospital in Canon City are arguing fetuses aren't people, in response to a wrongful death lawsuit that is now being appealed to the state Supreme Court. Although the court case has stalled, a recent article gave it a burst of national attention.Lori Stodghill died of pulmonary emboli on Jan. 1, 2006 at St. Thomas More Hospital, according to a district court judge's summary judgment on the case in 2010. At the time of her death, Stodghill was pregnant with twins who did not survive.Stodghill's husband, Jeremy, filed a...

RALEIGH — Efforts are under way to make North Carolina the first state since Alaska in 1980 to eliminate taxes on total personal income. Competing proposals also would launch a pro-growth tax reform renaissance that would scrap corporate income taxes that discourage capital investment and savings. The John Locke Foundation introduced a plan Wednesday including those elements, along with a repeal of estate taxes and the retail sales tax at the state level. Researchers at the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C-based tax research group, are among those lauding the JLF plan. “The whole point is economic growth. It’s not...

Former New York state Sen. Shirley Huntley is planning to plead guilty to mail fraud charges in a new federal case leveled against her, The Post has learned. The Queens Democrat is expected to admit that she used funds from a non-profit organization to benefit herself and family members, a source said.

When Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss announced Friday that he wouldn’t seek a third term in 2014, a race that already was likely to feature a contested Republican primary exploded into a free-for-all. Several Republicans, including several congressmen, are eyeing the seat. The more crowded the field, the more likely the GOP race will pit mainstream conservatives against the hardliners who had grown disenchanted with Chambliss for working with Democrats to find common ground on budget and tax issues. Democrats, meanwhile, hope for exactly that kind of Republican fracas. They view the 69-year-old Chambliss’ decision as an opportunity to reverse the...

Sometimes, Barack Obama acts like the Constitution does not apply to him and the Congress is an imaginary being. Friday, the United States Court of Appeals brought the president back to Earth and reminded him that that the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the U.S. Senate are very much part of reality by voiding three of Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. The D.C. Circuit ruled that the president could not end-run the confirmation process merely because at the beginning of 2012 the U.S. Senate was meeting every three business days in, what lawyers call, pro forma session....

When I heard the inevitable, that Obama, Leon Panetta, and General Dempsey  finally caved into the ACLU, which sued to push women into hot combat zones, I thought back to my tour in Vietnam, when we would fly our Marine helicopters into Landing Zones which were north of the DMZ, and inhabited by Marine grunts - for months at a time. The guys were, quite remarkably, in good spirit, but hadn't bathed, of course, for weeks or more, and  many people  would say they were living like animals in an outpost far, far out there in the boonies of, literally, no...

Akron, Ohio — She disappears into a back room to find her hat and gloves. Nearly 13 years have passed since someone killed Priscilla Lollar’s oldest child, and in that time, she says, she has never visited his grave. She has thought about what that moment would be like, and deep down she knows it is something she needs to do. But she’s afraid that pain would soon follow, and so instead, Priscilla has chosen for years to feel nothing. Early on Jan. 31, 2000, Richard Lollar and a childhood friend, Jacinth Baker, were stabbed to death in Atlanta. This...