Free Republic

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, South Carolina Congressman Jeff Duncan announced that he would be returning a significant portion of his office budget to the taxpayers for the second year in a row. Duncan’s wish is that the returned funds be used to pay down the national debt. Duncan announced that his office would be returning around $200,000 or 15.2% of his overall budget. That figure is on top of a mandatory 11.1% cumulative cut to all Congressional Offices over the past two years.

As stranded Carnival Cruise passengers began finally disembarking in Mobile, Alabama, late Thursday evening, MSNBC had NBC News correspondent Mark Potter on the scene to speak with them. One young lady during her over three minute interview tried to cite a Bible verse that helped her get through the ordeal, but Potter pulled his microphone away and quickly ended the discussion (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberals all over America are just giddy over the way newly elected Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren blasted bank regulators in a Senate hearing this week. They are singing her praises as the champion of the consumer. The Huffington Post reported on her performance with the headline, “Elizabeth Warren Embarrasses Bank Regulators at First Hearing.” A YouTube video was also posted with the same title. The 4 minute video shows Senator Warren confronting top bank regulators from the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFTC, Fed, and Treasury. The video is shown below. Another site, Gawker.com, reported the same story with the headline, “Elizabeth...

President Barack Obama acknowledged on Friday that he wished his father had been a bigger part of his life as he argued that stronger families are just as important as gun control in reducing crime and violence in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Obama returned to his old home neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago with a different take on his gun control message - that it will require an improved home environment for children to reduce the possibility that they will one day resort to violence. To do that, he said, will require better economic conditions for low- and middle-class Americans,...

Friday night bandstand ...Elvis..Ricky Nelson...Gene Pitny...Jack Scott...Good music listen in ...few commercials...*** G.P

Moscow, February 11, Interfax - Egypt is undergoing complex historical transformations; one should be patient and hope for a positive outcome, Russian Ambassador to Cairo Sergey Kirpichenko said in an interview with Voice of Russia radio. The scale of Egypt's Islamization should not be exaggerated, he said. The country took the Islamization course back in the 1970s when Anwar El Sadat was the president, the diplomat recalled. It was when the authorities started flirting with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic political forces, and the revolution of 2011 brought those forces to power. "I do not think there is a...

My Dear Senator Feinstein, Thank you for your personal reply to my concerns about the banning of AR-15's and similar weapons. I think that neither justice nor the Constitution is served by punishing an entire nation for the act of a random madman. I have recently re-read both the 2008 Heller and the 2010 McDonald United States Supreme Court opinions. I believe that these decisions put your legislation on tenuous Constitutional grounds at best. The Heller case found that to ban an entire class of firearms was clearly unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment. The case specifically referred to handguns, quote,...

Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was charged in federal court Friday with conspiring to use campaign funds for personal use -- in an alleged $750,000 spending spree that included purchases of a gold-plated Rolex and pricey children's furniture. It had been expected that a plea agreement would be entered into court Friday, but that agreement is apparently still pending. Instead, federal prosecutors charged Jackson Friday with conspiracy. Prosecutors separately charged his wife Sandi with filing false federal tax returns, but according to her attorney she has reached a plea agreement. In a statement, the former Illinois Democratic congressman said he...

Universal background checks before gun purchases can have an enormous impact on reducing firearm-related deaths, according to testimony presented before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee this week. Missouri, the site of President Barack Obama’s recent gun control speech, had a firm “permit-to-purchase” law in place until 2007, when it was repealed. The law -- which both the Missouri Sport Shooting Association and NRA helped overturn -- required Missouri residents to obtain a sheriff’s permit before purchasing a concealable weapon. Control... Groupon Ends Gun-Related Deals After Sandy Hook Massacre Groupon Ends Gun-Related Deals After... Sponsored Link Image Ad AT&T® Official Site...

Beijing: China's new Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has warned cadres of a Soviet-style collapse if the party is confronted with ideological dissent, military disloyalty and corruption, the deadly mix that led to the dramatic disintegration of once mighty Soviet Union. China must heed the still "deeply profound" lessons of the former Soviet Union, where political rot, ideological heresy and military disloyalty brought down the governing party, Xi, 59, reportedly told party leaders during his tour of Guangdong province in December last year soon after his election as the General Secretary of the ruling party a month before. "Why did...

" And you thought our Valentine's Day thread was sick. It was only sick because it was real. This woman was sentenced to 2-4 years for poisoning her boyfriend 10-12 times since 2009. She would spike his drinks ... which cause nausea, vomiting, and breathing problems when taken orally... Psychiatrists say she did it because, in medical terms, "she's all rotten inside... ." Vickie Jo Mills

While the White House and the Catholic Church continue to slug it out over whether private, for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby should have to provide their employees with federally mandated birth control, two Democratic lawmakers are hoping to ease one roadblock to women’s access to contraception: Pharmacists. In an effort to standardize pharmacies’ procedures for filling prescriptions for birth control, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have reintroduced the “Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act.” It’s the same bill the politicians tried to get through previous legislative sessions, but these two are clearly Charlie-Brown-and-the-football types, and...

Most of you here felt 'that moment' a long time ago, when you were too young to vote, too young even to get behind the wheel. You may not even remember when it happened. My Rite of Passage was today. I went to Big 5 and purchased a 12 gauge shotgun. I actually won't be able to drive my 'new friend' home until later this month, after a background check. Hopefully, there is no evildoer using my full name while commiting their evil deeds. I'm legally clean though, never even been arrested (yet). I purchased a box of bullets, and...

I’m not one to ramble on about abuses of freedom. It isn’t really my style. But every now and then something comes up that I feel needs a wider audience. And the controversy surrounding 3D printed gun parts has brought up some big issues for me this week. In 3D Printing to End Gun Control, Guns.com writer S.H. Blannelberry looked at new uses for an emerging manufacturing technology. 3D printers, which are becoming more affordable, smaller, and more efficient, are used to print just about everything imaginable. Even gun parts. The fear, obviously, is that printed guns will get in...

PLYMOUTH, England, - A woman in England says her family's pet rabbit apparently scared off a nighttime burglar. Kimberley May of Plymouth, England, said she and her family heard the rabbit, Toby, thump on the floor loudly five times in the early hours Thursday and they went downstairs a few hours later to find burglars had taken items including a WWI medal and gifts for her upcoming wedding , the Plymouth Herald reported Friday. "We think that when the rabbit thumped it scared the burglar off and they left all the stuff they were going to take," May said. "They...

Cheaper Than Dirt just made the largest single contribution to the Second Amendment Foundation and first “Diamond Level” donation of $100,000. The Second Amendment Foundation is pretty happy about this. “The level of support from CheaperThanDirt both delighted and shocked me,” said Second Amendment Foundation director Ray Carter. “SAF has never before received a single donation of this size and by itself Cheaper Than Dirt’s contribution will make possible a major expansion of SAF legal action and education efforts. We are privileged to consider Cheaper Than Dirt a partner in our efforts.” “Created in response to the generous donation from...

The case of computer whiz Aaron Swartz -- who committed suicide after federal prosecutors charged him with 13 felony fraud counts -- has become, for some, emblematic of how overzealous prosecutors are going too far in pursuit of a win. The shocking suicide -- the 26-year-old co-creator of RSS and Reddit hanged himself last month -- has led to calls to rein in the practice of overcharging defendants. Swartz could have been punished with up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines -- a greater penalty than some murderers face. And it was all for downloading millions...

As reported here and here Dr. Taitz filed a petition with the Supreme Court for the Obama eligibility case Noonan v Bowen. The petition was referred to the full court and distributed for conference scheduled for February 15, 2013. Here is the initial order list for February 15th, 2013. The short list of granted petitions does not include Noonan v Bowen. Another list will be released by the SCOTUS on Monday or Tuesday. It is normal for them to release a short list of the granted petitions before they release a very long list of denied petitions. The longer list...

Making everyone else's Valentine's Day plans look lame in comparison, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama splurged with meal at Minibar last night. Obama Foodorama reports that the couple arrived via motorcade at the avant-garde Penn Quarter restaurant at 7 p.m. yesterday for a two-hour long romantic dinner. No doubt that's not an easy reservation to score at the 24-seatings-a-night restaurant, but given José Andrés' support of Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign and that whole leader of the free world thing, it's probably not a problem. Reps at ThinkFoodGroup are deferring press requests to the White House, but Washingtonian...