Free Republic

A woman of Arab and Jewish descent who was strip-searched at a Detroit-area airport has reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed on her behalf, the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday The federal government will give Shoshana Hebshi $40,000 as compensation for being humiliated on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks after armed agents forced her from a plane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, made her undress during a search and held her for hours. American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday.

<p>In the category of “no good deed goes unpunished,” we now have the speech of FBI Director James Comey at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He said some remarkable things. The first is that he requires all his agents and analysts to visit the museum so that they can acquaint themselves with evil. The second is that he personally is so “haunted” by the Holocaust that “it has long stood as a stumbling block to faith.”</p>

And did Mike Huckabee even have second thoughts about running after Megyn Kelly Almost Called Him "Mike F--Abee" on live TV? In a comical way, Megyn may have already dissed Mike Huckabee's chances of even making the top seven. You have to feel a little sorry for Mike Huckabee at this point. You can't help but think of "F---Abee" every time we see Mike Huckabee on TV. Can you imagine if Megyn Kelly inadvertently introduced Hillary by a particular name that "Sounds Like Hillary" if she ever gets an interview?

President Barack Obama is hosting a rare gathering of lawmakers from both political parties at the White House to thank them for their work on legislation permanently changing how Medicare pays doctors. Democrats and Republicans, along with Cabinet and White House officials, are mingling on the South Lawn on a warm spring evening. Obama said the bipartisan achievement would not have happened without the work of House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, and Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme, head of the Diocese of Maiduguri in Nigeria's Borno State, was in a chapel praying before the Blessed Sacrament last December when, he says, something extraordinary happened: Jesus Christ appeared holding a sword, which He offered to the prelate. According to Bishop Dashe, the moment he took the sword from Jesus' hands, it transformed into Rosary beads. He then heard Christ repeat three times, "Boko Haram is gone." The bishop recalls, "I didn't need any prophet to give me the explanation. It was clear that with the Rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram."...

A Senate staff member told me yesterday there is a classified version of the nuclear framework with Iran that members of the Senate are having difficulty assessing because it has been classified secret and is locked up in the Senate security office. I was told that few Senate staffers are being allowed to read this classified version of the framework. This revelation raises several serious questions about President Obama’s desperate effort to get a nuclear deal with Iran. First, this classified version of the framework agreement must be different from the fact sheet on the framework released by the State...

A Colorado man who has been “fighting with his computer for the last several months” unloaded a volley of shots into his Dell tormentor, resulting in the death of the computer and his arrest for discharging a firearm, cops report. When asked about the shooting, Hinch told TSG, “I just had it,” adding that he tired of the balky computer’s “blue screen of death.” Hinch said that he whacked the computer with a 9mm Hi-Point pistol recently purchased from a Craigslist seller. The gun was seized by police, who left the computer behind. The late Dell XPS 410 model, seen...

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has sent a letter to tens of thousands of pastors nationwide, urging them to preach about biblical marriage the weekend before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments over states’ rights regarding the definition of marriage.“On Tuesday, April 28, the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in favor of ‘same-sex marriage.’ How will the American church respond?” he asked. “The prophet Daniel described the people who know their God as people who do two things: display strength and take action (Daniel 11:32).”Cruz therefore asked that pastors deliver...

A group of congressional Democrats introduced a resolution on Tuesday seeking to ensure that students who attend public colleges and universities can graduate without debt. The Senate resolution was introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), while Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) introduced the House version. The lawmakers support plans to increase financial aid, help states lower tuition and make it possible for students to earn degrees in less time. In a statement, they noted that the cost of college has increased by 300 percent over...

Can Lynch overrule Judge Hanan? If so, is that why Obama is whining so much about a vote on her?

The top 10 countries that are fans of the U.S., and the top 10 countries that are critics, includes some surprises: France made #10 on the fan list, and Germany made #10 on the critics, based on a new Pew Research Center survey.What's not surprising here is that Israel is our #2 fan, and the U.S. gets high unfavorable ratings from Palestinians.There is little evidence of "profound anti-Americanism" except in a handful of countries, Pew's research found. Top 10 CriticsEgypt 85% UnfavorableJordan 85% UnfavorableTurkey 73% UnfavorableRussia 71% UnfavorablePalestine territories 66% UnfavorableGreece 63% UnfavorablePakistan 59% UnfavorableLebanon 57% UnfavorableTunisia 47% UnfavorableGermany...

This was pretty funny. William Shaheen, Hillary's New Hampshire co-chair and husband of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, appearing on today's With All Due Respect, boasted that he knows where Hillary stands on 10 different issues. But when hosts Mark Halperin and John Heilemann put Shaheen to the test, asking him where Hillary stands on the Keystone Pipeline and the Trans Pacific trade deal, Shaheen had to sheepishly admit that he didn't know Hillary's view on either issue, despite his boast and having specifically said that he knows where Hillary stands on trade. View the video here.

Voters in Parma, Missouri voted in their first African-American female mayor. Tyus Byrd will be sworn in as mayor on Tuesday evening, April 14, at the Parma Community Building. According to Mayor Randall Ramsey, five out of six police officers resigned this week, effectively immediately. Mayor Ramsey said the clerk and the waste water treatment plant supervisor also turned in resignation letters citing “safety concerns.” …

So. Are we done now? And they were forced to do this, many commenters claimed: "They were threatened with negative counselling statements and OERs if they didn’t participate. It was pretty much" do this or we’ll kill your career before it even starts.'" "Someone head to IG with this? Pretty sure this was a forced activity." "Worthless ROTC commanders need to get booted for this incompetence. As a combat vet this sickens me and is a setback for women in the military." I blame the high command of the armed forces. There should be rampant resignations over Obama's maladministration --...

Today on HERE AND THERE: It's clear now, it's not just an oil price drop, but an oil price war, being waged by Saudi Arabia. Among the targets: the new generation of NM shale oil drillers that have made the United States at least temporarily energy-sufficient. Economist Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy has a petroleum battlefield report.

A passenger search at John F. Kennedy International Airport of a 70-year-old woman turned up 4 pounds of cocaine — in her underwear. Olive Fowler of Georgetown, Guyana, arrived in New York on April 12 when officials found her in possession of $73,000 worth of cocaine.

When oil prices recover—and plenty of analysts think the climb back up will start soon—Canada’s western frontier of Saskatchewan and neighboring Alberta will ‘still have the edge’, according to a report from TD Economics. Depressed oil prices may have skewed the view from Canada’s oil-producing west, but this will be one of the better places to bet on the oil rebound. Saskatchewan remains the last highly accessible onshore North American oil frontier and it is home to part of the prolific Williston Basin. And as the industry gears up for the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference (WBPC) on 28 April, the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday ordered New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to display on its buses a controversial ad that refers to Muslims killing Jews, rejecting the argument that the ad could incite terrorism or imminent violence. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan said the ad from the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which had previously run in Chicago and San Francisco, was protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

By now you’ve probably seen the video. Simple text overlaid on sweeping and beautiful natural vistas set to a serene — but determined — instrumental soundtrack. Subtle stylistic choices: the use of lens flare, vintage film effects, and mirroring; the use of just enough motion graphics to make a point without being distracting. Beneath it all, a translation in Arabic script for the intended audience. Together, it forms the most potent and moving message I’ve seen addressing the rise of the Islamic state. It cuts through the noise, and offers the reality of God’s love and the opportunity for salvation to men...

BOSTON (AP) — First, the jury was shown large, vibrant pictures of the four people killed in the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath. Then prosecutors pulled out the photo they saved for last: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev giving the finger to the security camera in his jail cell. “This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged,” federal prosecutor Nadine Pellegrini told the jury that will decide whether the 21-year-old former college student should be executed. The penalty phase in the Boston Marathon bomber’s trial opened in dramatic fashion Tuesday, with prosecutors portraying Tsarnaev as a coldblooded killer and “America’s worst...