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President Barack Obama will send three White House officials to the funeral of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who died in police custody this month. Obama sent no senior officials to Margaret Thatcher or Chris Kyle‘s funerals. Priorities. FOX News reported: The White House says the head of President Obama’s initiative for minority males will attend the funeral of a Baltimore man who died after sustaining serious injuries while in police custody.

French Prime Minister: Attending Mass "Most Beautiful" Response to Terror Threat Manuel Valls emphasizes Catholic culture of France and warns of division By John Burger Aleteia 4/24/2015 http://www.aleteia.org/en/world/article/french-prime-minister-attending-mass-most-beautiful-response-to-terror-threat-5888467040993280 It’s not the kind of sentiment one would expect to hear from the leader of a nation that prides itself on its history of secularism. But in the wake of a thwarted terrorist attack on churches in France this past weekend, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was clear: attending Mass is “the most beautiful and strongest" answer to terrorism. Valls spoke to reporters while standing next to Bishop Michel Santier of Creteil, the...

Does the United States Constitution require states to allow members of the same sex to marry each other? Does the Constitution require states to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples who were legally married in another state? These are the two questions the Supreme Court of the United States will ponder as it listens to oral arguments Tuesday. It seems simple. But the roads that have led to this point have been anything but. After years of legal challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage, many of them successful, as well as voter referendums in which the traditional definition of marriage has...

12:40 p.m.: Remarkable, on-the-spot video from WGNO-TV of the train falling off the track at Huey P. Long Bridge embedded below; see our report here.

Bill Kristol writes in this week's newsletter: About 7,500 votes were cast in The Weekly Standard's third presidential poll of the year, twice as many as in the poll a couple of months ago. In that straw poll (and, to repeat, these are obviously not scientific surveys, but rather polls of those who chose to participate), Scott Walker, was far ahead, with almost half the first place votes. He still leads, but has come back to the field some. He's got 30% of the first place ballots, and appears on an impressive 69% of all ballots as a first, second...

By now, you’ve probably heard of Kristen Lindsey. She’s the veterinarian from Brenham who’s given more bad press to the state than Blue Bell after she posted a picture on Facebook of herself, smiling and holding an arrow with a dead cat on the end of it:

In recent days, revelations from the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash” have revealed controversial Clinton Foundation financial deals, some including with the federal government. The revelations have led to a campaign by Clinton allies to downplay the notion of wrongdoing. However, as a video montage shows in 2009, it was then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who championed this new “controversial” expansion of public and private sector mergers, which left the Obama administration free to pick so-called “winners and losers” from a pool of Clinton foundation donors. Announcing the new “Global Partnership Initiative,” in 2009 at the Global Philanthropy Forum Conference, then-Secretary...

In recent days, revelations from the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash” have revealed controversial Clinton Foundation financial deals, some including with the federal government. The revelations have led to a campaign by Clinton allies to downplay the notion of wrongdoing. However, as a video montage shows in 2009, it was then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who championed this new “controversial” expansion of public and private sector mergers, which left the Obama administration free to pick so-called “winners and losers” from a pool of Clinton foundation donors. Announcing the new “Global Partnership Initiative,” in 2009 at the Global Philanthropy Forum Conference, then-Secretary...

Before protests over Freddie Gray’s death turned chaotic, an unlikely alliance was born in Baltimore on Saturday: Rivals from the Bloods and the Crips agreed to march side by side against police brutality. The alleged gang members are pictured on social media crowding together with Nation of Islam activists, who told The Daily Beast they brokered the truce in honor of Gray, who died last week after sustaining spinal injuries while in police custody. In one photo, a gang activist in a red sweatshirt crouches to fit into a group photo with rivals decked out in blue bandanas. “I can...

EU leaders have told Ukraine they are worried about ceasefire violations in the east of the country but will not send armed peacekeepers there. "We can only talk about a civilian mission, not military," European Council President Donald Tusk told a news conference in Kiev.

You've likely heard about what happened already. Two New York City entrepreneurs, leaders in the city's gay business community, hosted a small event for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in their Central Park South penthouse. The story got to the Times, and the gay community flipped out, given Cruz's aggressive and consistent hostility to the idea of same-sex marriage. There were calls for a boycott of the hotel and other properties the pair owned; each of them -- first Ian Reisner and then Mati Weiderpass -- apologized for hosting the tea party senator. Reisner's apology explains the choice in self-deprecating (and...

Godfrey-Lee Public Schools had to divert about $1 million from its general fund to cover some of the costs for state-imposed sanctions for what the Michigan Department of Education deemed as failing academic performance by the students at the district's high school. Superintendent David Britten said the state’s grants for the mandates didn’t cover all the costs necessary to execute the improvement plan, and programs had to be cut and class sizes increased. Yet, the high school in the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools received an “A” grade from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy for its academic performance based on state...

Welcome To The Sean Hannity Show Thread! All Posters And Lurkers Are WELCOME! The Show Thread Between EL Rushbo And TGO'S Lounge. Be The First To Post And Win A Sean Hannity Show Thread High Power Blender. Listen To Sean Do Comentary, Talk To Guests And Take Calls From YOU! :)=^..^= Image by Cool Text: Free Graphics Generator - Edit Image

I noticed that my Congressman (Roe TN-1) was in Pigeon Forge this past weekend to welcome Paula Deen. Recall that she got the business not too long ago for thoughtcrime. Thought some FReepers who might be coming to East Tenn for vacation or passing through might be interested. Menu looks mouth watering.

Religious leaders are calling on members of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing to recuse themselves from the blockbuster gay-marriage case that the court will begin considering on Tuesday. Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries, told reporters he’s filing a motion with the Supreme Court calling for the recusal of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. “Justices Ginsburg and Kagan, knowing full well that unique legal issues regarding the definition of marriage would soon come before them, deliberately officiated at so-called homosexual wedding ceremonies creating not merely the appearance of bias,...

NEW YORK CITY, April 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Speaking to an influential gathering in New York City on Thursday, Hillary Clinton declared that “religious beliefs” that condemn "reproductive rights," “have to be changed.” “Yes, we've cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health,” Hillary told the Women in the World Summit yesterday. Liberal politicians use “reproductive health” as a blanket term that includes abortion. However, Hillary's reference echoes National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O’Neill's op-ed from last May that called abortion “an essential measure to prevent...

Owning your own home and making it your castle is a key element of the American dream. Or is it? That’s become a more complicated question in recent years, particularly since the crash of 2007 and the bursting of the housing bubble well before that. Obviously the ability to own rather than rent can still be a very advantageous situation… for some people. But the reality is that it’s not the best choice for everyone, particularly if they are already in a tenuous financial situation. Stan Humphries of Zillow has an editorial at USA Today where he makes the...

India has asked its largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier Qatar to cut gas prices to match the 60% slump in global rates in last one year. India buys 7.5 million tonnes a year of LNG on a long-term 25 year contract, indexed to a moving average of crude oil price. The price of LNG from Qatar comes close to $13 per million British thermal unit as compared to the $6-7 rate at which it is available in the spot or current market. The high price of LNG under the long-term contract has led to users in fertiliser and power...

Earlier this month, a conservative student named Laura was suspended from Barry University for exposing her administration's sympathetic nature to ISIS. She’s a 4.0 honors student and was even awarded 'Most Outstanding Senior’ by the Communications Department the same day her expose was published. The administration, obviously feeling embarrassed, retaliated by punishing Laura for alerting the community of their anti-American behavior. For the past three weeks, Laura’s graduation status has been in jeopardy. Unfortunately, this type of retaliation towards conservative students happens every single year. It happened to me around this time last year, as I was about to...