Free Republic

A big win in a big blue state — there are few things that make sweeter music for the fractured Republican Party these days. But many political observers say there is even more to what happened tonight than that. Last year, Chris Christie was elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association and he officially takes over that post in Arizona in 15 days. It’s a position with a high national profile, money to spread around and a bully pulpit. So, in way, Christie’s power just doubled. Friends of Christie and people who have watched him in action the past year...

Weighing only 0.56 ounces (16 grams), the Black Hornet looks like a tiny toy helicopter. But it's really a nano-size piece of military hardware unlike anything on the battlefield today... The Black Hornet nano drone, which can be carried in a soldier's pocket, has an onboard camera that gives troops video and still images of hard-to-access places.

President Obama is a gifted politician. He is gifted with rhetoric virtuosity. He is gifted with the ability to lie directly to camera without blinking. And he is gifted with some of the most incompetent conservative opposition in the history of the country. How else to explain the fact that after years of President Obama holding up one hand to wave a wand to grab attention while using the second hand to stuff a rabbit into his hat, Republicans are still staring slack-jawed at the wand? The wand, in this case, is social policy. Buffeted by the winds of his...

November 6, 2013. (Romereports.com) Those attending Wednesday's general audience, didn't expect the Pope to ask them a favor, but with about 50,000 out in the Square,  that's exactly what he did. POPE FRANCIS“And now, I will ask all of you for an act of charity. Don't worry, it's not about money.” The Pope explained that before the audience, he met with a one year old girl named Noemi, who is extremely ill. Reflecting on Christians' unity with the 'Communion of Saints' he asked everyone to pray for the little girl. POPE FRANCIS“Even though we might not know her, she is...

Thanksgiving, or National Family History Day as it is now called, is upon us and in all the pomp and joy we often forget that it is the day to give thanks for what you have, particularly when it comes to a family with grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren. Mind you, the first ever Thanksgiving dinner was nearly 400 years ago and between the English Pilgrims and the Native Americans from different tribes in the region, a celebration of life and a pact of peace which was one of the only to survive more than 50 years. After the first...

Wendy Davis is continuing her campaign to reform her image as an abortion activist as she attempts to moderate her extreme views enough to placate a Texas electorate that is solidly pro-life. Davis has already downplayed her pro-abortion views and is attempting to focus on other political issues, and now she’s attempting to pull a fast one in her campaign for governor by declaring herself “pro-life.” From a local news report about her campaign stop at the University of Texas at Brownsville: It was late June when Wendy Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, rocketed to national prominence on...

[T]he object [was] an asteroid 17 to 20 metres across ... with a mass of 10,000 tones [and] exploded at an altitude of about 30 kilometres. The initial explosion carried an energy equivalent to about 500 kilotonnes of TNT. The explosion of the object caused] flying glass, which injured more than a thousand people and collapsed one building. Of 374 injured people who responded to an internet survey ..., the most common complaint related to eyes – 180 people said their eyes hurt and 70 were temporarily blinded. But 20 also reported sunburn; one was burned so badly that his...

One person was killed and eight injured in a series of small explosions Wednesday outside the provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan, officials said. The blasts bore the hallmark of a revenge attack by a disgruntled citizen of the type that occasionally takes place around China. Assailants angered at perceived injustices have blown up public buses, stabbed officials and attacked schools. However, security forces are also on edge over an attack in Beijing last week in which three people drove through crowds to Tiananmen Gate before setting their vehicle alight. The attack...

Our pastor is considering allowing the Neocatechumenal Way to start a mission in our parish. I have been perusing the internet for information on this group. Those who are not fans appear to be stridently opposed to them, and those associated with them say there is a lot of false accusations hurled at them.

As I wrote when His Excellency Most Reverend Leonard Blair was translated from Toledo to Hartford: “Bishops are not being penalized for involvement in the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR. They are being promoted.” The Fishwrappers had a spittle-flecked nutty. Micken’s of The Bitter Pill had a melt-down.Now Bp. Salvatore Matano has been moved from Burlington, Vermont to Rochester in New York… where he replaces one of the most liberal and loooooong-ruling bishops ehvur.I wrote about Bp. Matano HERE. He celebrated a Pontifical Mass in the older, traditional form of the Roman Rite in the jammed co-Cathedral of Burlington. At...

Poll on potential Chris Christie vs. Hillary Clinton 2016 match-up After Chris Christie's easy re-election to a second term as New Jersey's governor, many observers are talking about his win's implications for the 2016 presidential election. We can't help but wonder: If the nominees are Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton, who would you vote for? Chris Christie Hillary Clinton

Just minutes after the election returns arrived in Boston Tuesday night, Martin Walsh’s cellphone rang. It was the vice president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden, offering his congratulations. “You son of a gun, Marty!” he thundered. “You did it!” The only problem was, it was the wrong Marty Walsh. Biden had called the cellphone of Marty Walsh, a former aide to US Senator Edward M. Kennedy who is now the president of Gateway Public Solutions, a government relations firm in Boston. At the time, this Marty Walsh said, he was sitting on the couch with his wife at...

Amber Langford and Annie Collinge, both 19, won a costume contest at a club in Chester, the U.K., but were criticized by loved ones of those killed on 9/11.The only thing more horrifying than these costumes was that someone thought they merited a cash prize. In a sickening stunt, two college students from Britain sparked outrage after they dressed as the burning Twin Towers and won a costume contest, the U.K. Sun reported. Amber Langford and Annie Collinge, both 19-year-old students at the University of Chester, donned matching costumes labeled “North Tower” and “South Tower,” and wore head pieces that...

This whiteboard animation shows what happened when Hitler lied to get elected and people don't care or pay attention to the lies of their leaders, until they do care...and at that point, it is too late. Parts of this video are narrated by a man who served as a German soldier and a German woman who lived right by the railroad tracks the cattle trains ran on that carried the Jews to their deaths. Based on Andy Andrews' book, How Do You Kill 11 Million People? Produced by www.thedrawshop.com This is real, don't be fooled. This is happening.

Part I: What it IsObamacare's enrollment fiasco has provided endless opportunities for pointless blather from the unwashed masses of the American "right." Talkshow celebrities and the delicate young men who blog for magazine websites cannot contain their outrage. One of them yesterday, the editor of an actual print magazine of moderately large circulation, trumpeted his revelations to the world. The President has lied to us! The more prudent John Boehner, who unlike the pundits and columnists, has a job involving political responsibility, was content with suggesting merely that the President had misled us.The great misleaders, alas, are the political leaders...

GARDENDALE, Alabama – I could tell you that as I sat across from Harold Jarvis, his 68-year-old memories of Iwo Jima came flooding back to him. But I don't think that's true. I believe those memories never left him. Listening to Jarvis recount his memories of one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of World War II was one of the most moving moments of my reporting life. I have read good books about the Battle for Iwo Jima as well as press accounts of it including from the great war correspondent Ernie Pyle. But it turned out I really...

Ashlea Bennett says she told uniformed Officer Brandon Carter no — but then he chased her around the building before zapping her repeatedly.A cop in Arkansas allegedly tasered a woman after she refused to show him her breasts. Ashlea Bennett alleges that uniformed Officer Brandon Carter strutted into her place of work on Dec. 13, 2011, and ordered that she give him a sneak peak of her bosom. When she declined, he reportedly then chased her around the building before zapping her repeatedly with his electroshock gun. Bennett, who says it was not the first time Carter had asked her...

“There must have been 15 Chicago firemen and an equal number of Chicago police and they formed a corridor for the Marines when they got off the airplane,” he said.

The average high school student in Detroit Public Schools missed, on average, 46 days of school in 2011-12, according to the head of the Detroit teachers' union. "That isn't a figure I made up," said Detroit Federation of Teachers AFT Local 231 President Keith Johnson. "That's documented." Johnson cited the statistic while discussing the problems teachers face while being evaluated when students are not coming to class. He said he saw the statistic in a school district report but did not have a copy of the report. Detroit Public School Spokespeople Jennifer Mrozowski and Steven Wasko didn't return requests for...

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results,” Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman famously said in 1975. Unfortunately for American taxpayers and consumers, too, many lawmakers make this mistake when setting federal energy policy. Swayed by special interests in the wind energy industry, they focus on the hopeful prospect of a thriving wind industry while overlooking the problems that arise from subsidizing it. This needs to change; energy policy should be based on economic realities, not wishful thinking. I’m working hard to promote facts-based energy policy here in Indiana, and...