Free Republic

This President was raised as a spoiled brat, his mother and Grandparents coddled and spoiled the man-child during his formative years. Spoiled Brats tend to become narcissistic, demanding, and disrespectful. Spoiled Adults tend to have an overestimation of their talents and abilities and shirk responsibility if anything goes wrong. They must always be at the center of attention, if not they will most likely abuse drugs or alcohol to escape reality. On February 7th during his last testimony as Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta stated that he informed Mr. Obama that the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, was under attack....

DENVER (AP) -- A package of gun control measures won initial approval in Colorado's Democratic-controlled House Friday night, with Vice President Joe Biden personally phoning four lawmakers from his ski vacation in the state to speed along the emotional debate. Biden phoned three freshmen legislators along with Democratic House Speaker Mark Ferrandino. The calls came amid a long debate over the proposals, including expanded background checks and ammunition limits - responses to mass shootings, including the killings at a Colorado movie theater. In all, the House gave the initial OK to four bills after a daylong debate. The preliminary votes...

“Under the leadership of this Prime Minister, Canada will never become a safe haven for zombies, ever.” -Foreign Minister John Baird, House of Commons, Feb. 13, 2013. John Baird’s tough-guy rhetoric may win applause from the Conservative back bench. But the foreign minister’s inflammatory words dangerously oversimplify a complex situation. Worse, they shamefully betray Canada’s historic role as an honest broker between the living and undead communities. The zombie movement has both a political and a military wing. While the military wing has been responsible for atrocities, which Canada correctly condemns, the political wing provides crucial social services to the...

**SNIP** Ask how he could humiliate not one but three generations of his globally known family — his famous father and his young children included. No, Jesse Jackson Jr. wouldn't be the first to purposefully slow-walk that yearslong walk. Not the first to delight in secret luxuries and expensive acquisitions along a reliable, efficient path to the self-destruction of his career and his reputation. Imagine, though, the depth of conniving, or self-delusion, or entitlement, or sheer audacious recklessness, that the federal accusations against Jackson would have required of him. What the feds on Friday suggested had happened here is a...

The price of many fast food items would tick up slightly if one assemblyman's bill makes it through the Nevada Legislature. Democratic Las Vegas Assemblyman Harvey Munford introduced Assembly Bill 122 during the floor session Thursday. The bill proposes a 5-cent tax, paid by the customer, for each item over 500 calories. Munford says he hopes the tax would deter people from eating out so frequently. He adds that the revenue would be directed to helping hospitals and improving Nevada's education system.

Young Americans are faced with joblessness, skyrocketing school loans, and burdensome entitlement programs. Now, health care prices will be rising considerably, threatening “rate shock” on America’s consumers. Aetna is “cautioning that premiums for plans sold to individuals could rise as much as 50 percent on average and could more than double for particular groups such as the young and healthy,” according to the Washington Post’s N.C. Aizenman. For Aizenman, the question is not whether these hikes are justified, but whether young consumers will skip health insurance entirely–and take the penalty instead. “Most of the new rules that could push up...

Bartiromo Takes Frank to Task Over Lack of ’08 Financial Crisis Prosecutions • Frank: 'Individuals' should be prosecuted on Wall Street, will not say who Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) advocated criminal prosecutions against “individuals” involved in the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent collapse on Wall Street Friday on CNBC. Maria Bartiromo reacted incredulously to Frank’s refusal to name specific individuals who may have perpetrated criminal wrongdoing, accusing the former Congressman of playing populist politics by making specious allegations against the financial industry. Frank attempted to deflect the criticism by stating as Chair of House Financial Services...

After finally watching Survivor for the first time, beginning with Season 20 - Heroes vs. Villains, I became an instant fan. Since then, I have watched every episode of every season - and they're about to begin Season 26. In between seasons, I have been trying to play catch-up. I have seen Seasons 1-3 and 9-13, and I've loved every minute. Sure, it's reasonable to ask whether it is an appropriate thing for a practicing Catholic to watch. The players aren't dressed modestly, though that's to be expected since it often takes place in the tropics, and in all...

'They started to hit me around the head with the gun but I managed to grab it off them and it fell to the floor.' Mr Rasul said one of the robbers ran over and picked up the gun and walked back to him. 'He was coming towards me and I thought, oh no, he's going to shoot me this time,' he said. 'So I grabbed the nearest thing to hand which was the shop sign from next door.

If you’re a donor or potential donor to Karl Rove’s group American Crossroads, I recommend you listen to Mark Levin’s recent interview with Donald Trump, because they disclosed some long overdue truths that needed to be said...

JOHNSTOWN - Local legislators are starting to take official measures to show their opposition to the state's new gun-control law. Fulton County supervisors this week unanimously agreed to endorse a law-enforcement position statement that calls the new regulations "unfair" and "overly restrictive." Montgomery County supervisors are considering a similar resolution... ... The 1,500-word position statement was drafted and unanimously approved last month by 52 members of the New York State Sheriff's Association, including Fulton County Sheriff Thomas Lorey, Montgomery County Sheriff Michael Amato and Hamilton County Sheriff Karl Abrams. ... ... (Sheriff) Lorey presented it to the Board of Supervisors'...

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - The Michigan Department of Transportation says one-fifth of the lights along freeways in Metro Detroit aren’t working — and copper thieves are mainly to blame. [...] MDOT has identified the area around I-94, east of I-75, as one of the worst hit by thieves. “We are taking measures to try to keep the cabinets safe and secure, but for every move we make, the thieves come up with a counter-move,” said Morosi. [...} And those counter-moves are sometimes deadly. In October, a 34-year-old man was electrocuted at Putnam and Lawton, near I-96, while attempting to steal copper...

The country's largest prison companies are generating huge profits as the U.S. locks up more undocumented immigrants than ever, and an Associated Press review shows the businesses are spending tens of millions on lobbying and political campaigns. The cost to American taxpayers is on track to top $2 billion for this year, and the companies are expecting their biggest cut of that yet in the next few years thanks to government plans for new facilities to house the 400,000 immigrants detained annually. After a decade of expansion, the sprawling, private system runs detention centers everywhere from a Denver suburb to...

Bill O’Reilly, who made Marc Lamont Hill into a national media star, now acts surprised that Hill had some kind words to say about mass murderer Christopher Dorner’s “exciting” rampage of death and destruction. The people cheering O’Reilly for “taking it to” Hill and “tearing into” him on his Thursday night show have apparently forgotten that O’Reilly was behind Hill’s rise to media stardom. Bill O’Reilly “lectured” Hill on his “insensitive” remarks, reports Glenn Beck’s The Blaze. In fact, O’Reilly and Hill have been working together for years, feeding off one another, in order to generate ratings. The question is,...

Interesting news for auto-watchers: Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A), the savvy conglomerate controlled by the great Warren Buffett, disclosed in an SEC filing on Thursday that it had bought 10 million shares of General Motors (NYSE: GM). That comes on top of another 15 million shares of GM Berkshire bought earlier in 2012, bringing the total value of the company's investment in the General to nearly $700 million as of Thursday's close. That's not chump change, even by Buffett's standards. What might Berkshire be thinking? Is GM a value stock? The obvious guess for anyone who knows anything about Buffett's career...

Since the recent State of the Union address, President Obama has been touting his proposal to offer free preschool to everybody. The White House cites studies that claim all manner of benefits to sticking young children into the zoo early on, including later “success.” And Obama claims one of his main motivations is to close the test score “achievement gap” between poor and rich kids.[snip] If you truly want to give your child an educational head start, turn off the TV and make him crack a couple of books every week.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WISTV) —Five people are in the hospital after a shooting outside a club very early Saturday morning. The incident happened shortly before 3 a.m. at the T and T Uptown Lounge, located at 3003 Colonial Drive. Three men and two women were taken to a local hospital for medical treatment. Police said two of the shooting victims were in critical condition Saturday morning. Preliminary information suggests that witnesses saw shots being fired from a car outside of the club, police said. There may have been an altercation at the club before the shooting, according to investigators.

Senate Democratic leaders unveiled a $110 billion sequester-replacement bill at a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday that would replace $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit March 1. The Senate Democratic package is split evenly between spending cuts and provisions raising new tax revenues, according to a Democratic source. It would raise nearly $54 billion in taxes by implementing the Buffett Rule, setting a minimum effective tax rate for wealthy individuals and families. It would raise additional revenues by changing the tax treatment of oil extraction from oil sands. ....snip.... On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified that...

Al 'Jazeera' Gore took to the Huffington Post on Valentine's Day to attack the Tea Party as well as the Koch brothers. Not surprisingly, his "False Spontaneity of the Tea Party" consisted of his practically patented brand of factually-challenged left-wing propaganda: A new study by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Medicine reveals that the Tea Party Movement was planned over a decade ago by groups with ties to the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. The movement was not a spontaneous populist uprising, but rather a long-term strategy to promote the anti-science, anti-government agenda of powerful corporate...

If you’re a donor or potential donor to Karl Rove’s group American Crossroads, I recommend you listen to Mark Levin’s recent interview with Donald Trump, because they disclosed some long overdue truths that needed to be said. Trump and Levin made several points that donors, the media, and the political class can no longer ignore and frankly should have picked up on long ago. When you see the facts all laid out, you’ll be asking yourself the same question as Levin: “I would say to the wealthy donors out there, why do you keep donating to him?” The first point...