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The House is out this week, giving Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) plenty of time (yeah, there’s a budget conference and other important things regardless of recess) to go on David Letterman and make funnies, delivering last night’s top 10 list.

Former Democratic Governor of Virginia Douglass Wilder declared “the biggest mistake” that fellow Democrat Terry McAuliffe made in his successful but very close campaign was appearing side by side with President Barack Obama. “The biggest mistake made in the McAuliffe campaign was the later introduction directly of Obama in the campaign, it almost sank him,” Wilder told WMAL radio in Washington D.C. …

How can we live our faith in a time of great difficulty? What can we do for those who are persecuted because of their faith? To ask this question means above all interrogating ourselves about the meaning of our faith. In order to be able to speak about the time of persecution Christians must really know their own faith.In 2010, when I was appointed bishop of Mosul, I knew that I would be coming to a city facing an extremely critical situation with regard to security—for many Christians had already been killed, and many had been forced to leave the...

Speaking to a group of business leaders at the White House on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he did not see any reason a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens could not be enacted before the end of this year. To make his point, he argued that there are “some very conservative folks” who “believe that now is the time to get this done.” …

Paramilitary tactics may be necessary in California to prepare for, or head off, an apocalyptic future with flooded coastal communities, scorched central valleys and rampant wildfires in the Sierras. That was the advice and prediction from one of the experts at a recent hearing on climate change adaptation by the state watchdog agency the Little Hoover Commission. Said Robert Verchick, an environmental law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans: “The way that you build resilience and robustness is to think about everything at once and then move forward in some kind of regimented, maybe paramilitary, way. Because it’s essential. It’s...

The Jindal administration announced late Wednesday that it is moving to strip food stamps from recipients who took advantage of a technical glitch last month to stock up on free groceries. The announcement came after U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., pressured state officials to take action by taking away food stamp benefits and forming a task force with local prosecutors to bring criminal charges. Retailers lost money when they allowed food stamp recipients to leave their stores with groceries even though they could not check spending limits. When the transactions were processed later, thousands bounced back because recipients exceeded their...

The second round of talks between Iran and six world powers - Russia, the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany - began Wednesday at the United Nations in Geneva. During the last round of talks three weeks ago, Iran unveiled a general proposal that would limit its nuclear program. Iranian negotiators then said Tehran would be willing to implement the steps as a trust-building measure as the talks toward a permanent solution continued. Last week, teams of nuclear experts from Iran and the world powers met at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to discuss Iran's proposal. Tehran...

A Missouri man was arrested after police say he took his 11-year-old daughter to meet someone who agreed to sexually assault the girl in response to a Craigslist ad, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Authorities in St. Louis, Mo. were alerted to the Craigslist ad when a user reported it as abuse. From there, they reached out to 32-year-old Anthony Brinkman pretending to be someone interested in performing sexual acts on the girl. Brinkman told the undercover officer, who was posing as a 27-year-old woman, that he wanted her to be his girlfriend so the two could both assault the...

**SNIP** These critics include Republican politicians who did not vote for ObamaCare; these are Republican governors who refuse to set up exchanges to reach their own citizens; these are people oppose expanding Medicaid to help poor people getting better health care; these are people who have never put any proposal on the table as an alternative fix for the nation’s costly health care system that leaves tens of millions with inadequate medical coverage and tens of millions more totally uninsured. The fact is if you are one of the estimated 2 million Americans whose health insurance plans may have been...

NEW YORK — Treadmills for $33? Computer monitors for $9? The deals are too good to be true — even at Wal-Mart. It turns out they're not. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says a "technical error" caused certain products to be priced absurdly low or high on its website earlier Wednesday morning.

Jeff Zients, the new tech czar in charge of repairing Healthcare.gov, was there too. Here’s another reason why I feel no schadenfreude over Obama voters having their plans canceled. I need to save all my schadenfreude for stories like this. The meeting ran two full hours. Details are vague but I can guess what the main topic was. Tick tock.

Obamacare forces young men and old people to pay for maternity coverage in their health insurance. It’s a ludicrous requirement that makes everyone’s health insurance cost more. But to rich, old leftist Sen. Tom Harkin, that’s not a bug in Obamacare. It’s a feature, because it imposes his values on everyone else. Harkin began his sermon: “I must say that there was a story the other day in the paper about somebody who said, ‘well gee, now I’ve got — I have to take this policy that covers maternity care. My wife and I aren’t having any more children.’ I...

My mother and father taught me some important lessons in my life. One of them was to not to pay attention to what someone is saying, but rather pay attention to what they are doing and the consequences of their actions. Never has this lesson been more evident in taking stock of the economic policies of Obama and the progressive liberals who seek to transform America from an individualistic, capitalistic society to a collective, socially democrat one. We hear on the news every day that the economy is improving, people are going back to work, and that the dark days...

Church spent heavily to prevent expansion of time limit for lawsuits by childhood sexual abuse victims. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was at the forefront of extensive lobbying against efforts to expand the time limit for lawsuits by victims of childhood sexual abuse, according to a document obtained by the Star Tribune.

History judges a leader exclusively through his actions and their ultimate results rather than through fleeting words. It appears that U.S. President Barack Obama is finally putting the brakes on his mouth after flooring it down Hope-and-Change Highway for most of his tenure. Remember the Syrian crisis that dominated chatter for months before all but vanishing? Recall how critics were talking about grievous incompetence and even possible impeachment? Fast-forward to today, and just try to start a conversation with, "Obama really botched the situation in Syria." Now that the Russians have overseen a plan for the destruction of that country's...

Working people woke up today with new faith in American politics.   Americans who want education, health care, safe jobs, and an economy of shared prosperity voted for working family candidates and policies that rebuild the middle class.  Last night’s results show that voters rejected the Tea Party extremism that led to the government shutdown and almost caused our country to default. You could see the impact of grassroots politics and the popularity of issues that make a difference in the lives of working people.In Boston, voters elected a union member for mayor. In Virginia, a working family candidate was elected...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” -- Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition… it’s America’s Clean-Up Hitter! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811 ___ Subbing for Biggirl & Fudd Fan ___

Testifying on Capitol Hill Wednesday about the failure of the Obamacare rollout, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was grilled about President Obama's false promise that millions of Americans could keep their insurance plans. Sebelius and Obama repeatedly stated plans held prior to Obamacare passing and going into effect would be grandfathered in. What they didn't mention is the "grandfathering" process comes with caveats, meaning if plans didn't meet new Obamacare standards, they would be cancelled. Because of those caveats, millions of Americans in the individual health insurance market have lost their health insurance plans despite being promised they...

Francis blessed the men during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square. ‘Too often we are arid, indifferent and detached,’ he told an estimated 50,000 people who had gathered to hear him speak on Wednesday morning. Pope Francis (L) hugs a sick person in Saint Peter's Square at the end of his general audience in Vatican City. Pope Francis received two special guests during his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. Two men with visible skin diseases came forward to receive blessings from the pontiff. Francis reached out and touched these men, as if they were no different...

An obese Florida man named George Jolicoeur was spared from jail time because he is too fat. The Obese man was arrested for scamming a number of restaurants, but now he doesn't need any alibi to save him from incarceration as prosecutors are now considering to set him free on account of his very obese form. According to a New York Daily News report, Jolicoeur was arrested in 2007 for scamming several restaurants. The Orlando Sentinel stated that the obese Florida man was offered a plea deal after prosecutors and authorities discovered that it would be too expensive to send...