Free Republic

<p>He’d blown the first debate. Now he was on the verge of blowing the second and risking his reelection. In an excerpt from their new book, Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann describe the moment when a president was talked away from the edge.</p>

The world’s press and the blogosphere have been abuzz for several months now with comments on how frequently Pope Francis talks about our enemy, the devil. Not only does he talk frequently about the devil, but he talks in such a way that indicates he actually believes in the devil’s existence and daily relevance to each of our lives — as should all faithful and well-formed Catholics.There has been such an atmosphere of skepticism in the world, and in some places in the Church, about what could be called the “biblical world view” — what Jesus and the Apostles...

The trouble started the night Jeff, one of the guys I drink and talk about God with, announced that he’d been summoned to court for the Zimmerman trial jury pool. We’d kept politics out of our Wednesday night meetings, which are held on my back porch, the six of us seated at an old dining room table propped next to my broken hot tub (Florida short-sale homes come standard with broken hot tubs). Instead of Bible Study, we call it our Tavern Ministry, and while we were often drunk halfway through, a churchlike decorum had always held sway. Once the...

BREAKING: Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen report Broncos coach John Fox taken to hospital w suspected heart attack.

<p>Facing a deadly resurgence of al-Qaida in Iraq, President Barack Obama signaled Friday that he will begin increasing U.S. military support for Baghdad after five years of reducing it.</p> <p>The new U.S. plan represents a remarkable shift for Obama, whose administration trumpeted the 2011 withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq as a major achievement and has since shifted its attention to other regional challenges, such as Syria, Egypt and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.</p>

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The Army has relieved the commander of its largest base in Japan after an investigation into alleged misconduct, according to a U.S. Army Japan press statement sent late Friday. The investigation had been ongoing since June 7, when Col. Eric Tilley was suspended from his job as commander of U.S. Army Garrison Japan. Maj. Gen. James C. Boozer, Sr., commander of U.S. Army Japan and I Corps (Forward), officially relieved Tilley on Friday for “lack of confidence” based on the results of the inquiry, according to the press statement. The statement provided no other details....

The GOP is divided on global warming, as seven in 10 Tea Party Republicans believe there's no solid evidence of a warming planet compared with three in 10 non-Tea Partiers, according to a Pew Research poll released Friday. Overall, 46 percent of Republicans said there is no solid evidence of global warming, compared with 11 percent of Democrats. Of those who see solid evidence of global warming, Republicans were nearly three times less likely (23 percent) to attribute it to human activity than Democrats (64 percent). That difference was more pronounced among Tea Partiers, 9 percent of whom said humans...

Threatened with huge fines and possible imprisonment, West Virginia poultry producer Lois Alt decided to stand up to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in court. In a case with implications for livestock producers in California and nationwide, Alt tried to sort out whether stormwater discharges from her farm actually require a federal permit. Her case won support from the West Virginia and American Farm Bureaus, which intervened in the court case on her behalf. Last week, Alt won an important decision when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ruled against EPA, saying that ordinary stormwater...

The chaotic launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare law has Democrats in Congress increasingly anxious about its potential impact on them in the 2014 elections and scrambling to protect themselves if the program's problems persist. Particularly nervous is a group of 16 Senate Democrats who are defending their seats next year, as Republicans will seek a net gain of six seats to try to take over the 100-seat chamber.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is punishing a Republican advertising firm for its work with the Senate Conservatives Fund, a conservative group that has fostered controversy within the Republican Party by challenging some GOP incumbents. The firm Jamestown Associates has worked for the SCF on many of its attack ads — and will no longer receive business from the NRSC as a result, the committee confirmed Friday. The move marks the opening salvo in a power struggle that has been brewing behind the scenes between the national Republican establishment and the SCF, which was founded by then-Sen. Jim DeMint of...

A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site — but also is getting paid to fix it.

With a 4-point grade average, a schedule stuffed with honors classes and a mission to Africa already behind her, Catelyn Meador doesn’t seem like the typical teenager who would get suspended for bringing a weapon to school. Like hundreds of thousands of minors caught up in zero-tolerance policies since the craze began two decades ago, Catelyn is serving a sentence that, rather than teaching her something, only hurts her academic future. Already, the 17-year-old has had to drop AP chemistry and was told last week that the make-up math work she did while on a 5-day suspension won’t count. Fortunately,...

Former Obama/White House spokesman Robert Gibbs admits Barack Hussein’s HHS minions are lying when they claim that no one in the Department knew that the Healthcare.gov website did not work properly and would lead to a rollout disaster. “It’s not believable,” said Gibbs. As a professional liar himself...

There’s a man living in the Ventana Wilderness in central California’s Santa Lucia Mountains who has been the fascination of many for years. Why? Because he’s 93 years old, lives alone five miles from the nearest road (the way he likes it) and has a different view of life. “I’m just different than most people. I’d rather go back than go ahead,” Jack English said in a recent video by filmmaker Grace Jackson. It’s one of several videos and photo stories featuring the man who makes violin bows. Living in a cabin made from materials off the land, English can...

Forbes magazine named Russian President Vladimir Putin the most powerful man in the world on Wednesday, October 30th, ranking him ahead of U.S. President Obama. But Obama is a cute little President.As an introduction to what has been happening, here is a Trifecta video from September 11th. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XiTTYhySl0&w=640&h=360] Video linkThe Forbes ranking of Putin at first place and Obama at second was explained in this way: The criticism of Forbes dropping Barack Obama to the number two spot behind Vladimir Putin as the most powerful man in the world misses two big points. One is confusing the power of the U.S. with the...

If you go to Rome, you can visit the Piccolo Museo del Purgatorio. Google it and look at some more of the very interesting pictures. People have come back from purgatory to burn their hand prints into prayer books, and clothing. Talk about proof of the fire of purgatory. Yet most people do nothing for the souls of our loved ones suffering there. So today we had a Holy Latin Requiem Mass for All Souls.

Team Obama reportedly debated the “you can keep your health insurance” line before they decided to lie to the American public. President Obama’s aides debated his now infamous “if you like your insurance plan you can keep it” line, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Advisers discussed whether it was a promise that could be kept and even considered having the president add some nuance in media interviews. But they decided that the president should be sweeping and emphatic, or, as one former official put it, talk “in broad, intelligible points that cut through.” But aides were...

El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams has forwarded 18 cases of potential voter fraud from the September recall election of Sen. John Morse to the district attorney for investigation. The cases are a variety of possible fraudulent votes perpetrated by Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters during the successful recall of Morse from his Senate District 11 seat. Some of the cases were caught when signatures on absentee or mail-in ballots didn't match those on file, clerk's office spokesman Ryan Parsell said. The office attempted to contact those voters for confirmation they had voted, he said, and when that...

The police chief who was suspended just for visiting Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will get his money back. Grantville, GA Chief Doug Jordan was suspended for a week without pay when his bosses learned that he'd spent time with the "controversial" Maricopa County Sheriff during his vacation in Arizona, as we reported. But after Sheriff Joe ignited national outrage against the board members who suspended him, the Grantville City Council voted on Monday to rescind the suspension of Chief Doug Jordan and pay him for the time he missed.The City Council said that Jordan was supposed to inform city leaders about the...

(KMOV) – Police arrested two people after they say their 2-year-old child was found wandering a Fenton hotel holding drug paraphernalia in his hands in late October. According to police, staff at the Stratford Inn Hotel found the boy walking through the halls with a marijuana pipe around 2 a.m. Oct. 24. The staff notified police, who determined what room the boy’s parents were staying in. Police say officers went to the door and found both parents asleep. They say the parents had no idea where their child had been gone.