Free Republic

The surprise winner of a Texas election has been criticized for misleading the mainly black constituents into believing he was African American. Dave Wilson, a white Republican and anti-gay activist, beat Houston's 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin in what has been described as a 'racially tinged campaign'. Mr Wilson won with a margin of 26 after he campaigned using flyers featuring African Americans and the message 'Vote for our neighbor Dave Wilson'. 'I'd always said it was a long shot. I didn't expect to win,' the former fringe candidate told KHOU. His flyers, designed using pictures he had found on the...

The uncivil war within the GOP will immediately stop if Mitch McConnell can be defeated in the Kentucky primary race. If McConnell can be defeated in 2014 - Then Chris Christie might not be the 2016 candidate for President. Period. If McConnell wins his 2014 primary – Then Chris Christie WILL BE the 2016 candidate for President. Period. If McConnell is defeated in 2014 - The financial donors will recognize their money is *futile* against the will of a committed and conservative electorate.

It has been a rough month for the roll out of the so-called Obamacare website, better known as Healthcare.gov. Although everyone from the administrator, to the Health and Human Services secretary, to the President of the United States has apologized for the chaos, and taken responsibility the failure, the problems still persist. So far, no one has lost their job - or their pay - over the ordeal and a mad scramble is underway to get it fixed. But even when they do get it working, there's likely to be another digital disaster right behind it. ***SNIP*** "The ineptitude of...

Confidant cardinal tells new tales about Pope John Paul's role in scandal In a new book, John Paul II’s longtime secretary claims that the former pope is not to blame for his support and praise of a disgraced power broker accused of pedophilia and bribery, according to a Catholic News Service report. The book, written in Italian by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz and titled Ho Vissuto con un Santo (I Lived with a Saint), has apparently changed certain memories of factual inconvenience — creating a sort of performance piece that sings truths people never knew. Pope Francis has ordered the canonization...

Former-Father Greg Reynolds is still excommunicated.The most wonderfullest and fluffiest Pope ehvur did this.Always keep that in mind when you read liberal cant about how he is shaking things up.There is an article about former-Father Reynolds who, like all dissenters, seems not to be able to shut up about himself.This is an interesting tidbit about him… After completing an economics degree at Monash University, Reynolds started questioning whether there was more to life. A friend of his mother’s suggested he enter the seminary, where others were surely grappling with such questions.“I went into the seminary not even sure that God...

Talks in Geneva between world powers and Iran ended late Saturday night without a deal, after hitting a snag earlier in the day when France questioned the terms of a proposed agreement. Chances of bridging all differences appeared to diminish as the day went on, but efforts continued. The foreign ministers of the seven delegations discussing Iran held a last-ditch meeting late Saturday, and were later joined by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in an apparent effort to salvage the talks. Earlier Saturday, Zarif said talks would resume within seven to 10 days, if an agreement would not be...

Ozark Trail is a lower end brand marketed at Walmart.  Just because something is inexpensive does not mean that it cannot work well.   Value for the time spent is an important consideration.  Flashlight technology has advanced so rapidly with light emitting diodes (led) that inexpensive lights of today can easily outperform expensive lights of a few years ago. I have been looking for a light that is very bright, so it could temporarily blind an assailant at  night, yet be tough enough to use as a makeshift  blunt instrument if necessary. My brother recommended this light to me, as...

Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter) has yet another attack piece against the important collection to be taken up this weekend for the Archdiocese for Military Services.In other words they are attacking Catholic chaplains.In the latest divisive hate piece Fishwrap has this suggestion: Outside the clergy, a small, lay-led online effort seeks to offer Catholics opposed to the collection an alternative when the basket makes its way through the pews.Catholics Against Militarism has made available on its website downloadable cards for Catholics opposed to the collection “to put in the collection basket instead of money, just to make their voices heard,”...

The investigative report they had been working on for the better part of a year, which detailed the hidden financial ties between one of the wealthiest men in China and the families of top Chinese leaders, would not be published. In the call late last month, Mr. Winkler defended his decision, comparing it to the self-censorship by foreign news bureaus trying to preserve their ability to report inside Nazi-era Germany, according to Bloomberg employees familiar with the discussion. Other news organizations have come under similar pressure. The websites of The New York Times, including a new Chinese-language edition, were blocked...

Gasoline prices are tumbling just in time for the holiday shopping season to begin. Consumers can thank the tentative reduction in tensions in the Middle East and swelling supplies of domestic oil for their good fortune, and energy experts say prices could fall further if negotiations between the West and Iran progress. The cost of a gallon of regular gasoline has dropped by 6 cents a gallon over the last week alone, in line with a steady swoon through the fall that has brought prices to their lowest levels in three years. …

The U.S. government urged that Bank of America Corp pay $863.6 million in damages after a federal jury found it liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit. In a filing late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the government also asked for penalties against Rebecca Mairone, a former midlevel executive at the bank's Countrywide unit who the jury also found liable, "commensurate with her ability to pay."

This week, we've asked who you'd vote for if Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton were the 2016 presidential nominees, and if Christie and Jeb Bush faced off in a GOP primary. Now, we're curious how Christie would fare against conservative Republican Ted Cruz. If the two squared off in a GOP primary, who would you vote for? Chris Christie Ted Cruz

Professor Kevin Blackistone at U Maryland is an ESPN panelist who thinks the Star-Spangled Banner is a "war anthem" and other insults. Video of this jerk follows: Blackistone vid

The family of a kidnapped woman in Duson, La., Bethany Arceneaux, took justice into their own hands Friday when they rescued Arceneaux from her captor, Scott Thomas, killing Thomas in the scuffle that ensued. Arceneaux, 29, was kidnapped on Wednesday from a child-care center parking lot by Thomas, 29, the father of her son, reported The Advertiser. Their two-year-old son was in her car at the time, and was not harmed. Arceneaux’s family received a tip that she was being kept in an abandoned house nearby. As law enforcement had not yet acted, a half dozen family members assembled at...

When a false-flag atrocity occurs of which Muslims are the purported victims, the United States goes to war to save them—the January 1999 stage-managed “massacre” at Račak, in Kosovo, being a classic example. When all-too-real massacres of Christians by Muslims take place, they are unreported in the Western media and uncommented upon by Western politicians.“Slaughter in Syria: 45 Christians Killed by Islamists in Sadad and Thrown into Mass Graves,” CatholicOnline reported on November 5. The facts of the case are obvious from the rebels’ own shockingly gruesome footage ( here with English subtitles ) and from the government forces’...

I find Remembrance Sunday sadder each year. It’s partly that I’m becoming sentimental – I find it increasingly difficult to recite any poetry without a catch in my voice – but it’s mainly that the fallen are now closer in age to my children than to me. When I was a small boy, I was, as small boys are, uncomplicatedly pro-war. At around eleven or twelve, I started to read the First World War poets, but I was still mainly attracted by the heroic element in their writing: their endurance in monstrous circumstances. Later, as a teenager, I began to...

(Reuters) - The Washington state Senate on Saturday passed a measure to extend nearly $9 billion in tax breaks for Boeing through 2040 in an embattled effort to entice the company to locate production of its newest jet, the 777X, in the Seattle area. Lawmakers acknowledged, however, that their efforts would likely be undermined if the airplane maker's key machinists union votes down a proposed labor contract due to go to before the membership on Wednesday.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson says he has not visited since his son reported to federal prison late last month. **SNIP** "Well his health has been recovering and that has been, as father, the most important thing to me. He has been diligent in doing his work. And I have nothing further to say about that," Rev. Jackson said at the Capitol Thursday (11/7).

...“What we’ve seen over the last several years is a constant ratcheting up of partisanship that prevents us from moving forward on things that I think most people would say aren’t Democrat or Republican ideas. They’re just good, common-sense American ideas,” Mr. Obama said at a Democratic party fundraiser in Miami. “Energy independence is one of them. Making sure that we’re investing in the best schools, so that our children can compete in this new global economy; rebuilding our infrastructure, not just our energy infrastructure, but our ports and our roads and our bridges and our air traffic control systems,...