Free Republic

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has gotten an extension to the Monday deadline her office faced for processing a proposed ballot initiative that advocates killing anyone who engages in gay sex. Harris asked a state court in late March for permission to reject the measure, calling it obviously unconstitutional.

New York real estate mogul Donald Trump said Thursday that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) could not prevent funding cuts to entitlement programs if elected president in 2016. “Huckabee is a nice guy but will never be able to bring in the funds so as not to cut Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid,” Trump tweeted. “I will.” Trump, a possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, also argued Huckabee was stealing his potential campaign ideas. “Huckabee copied me,” Trump wrote. “I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare &...

An article in Sina's Chinese-language military news web portal compared the abilities of India's HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft and the FC-1 Xiaolong/JF-17 Thunder developed jointly by China and Pakistan. Overview of the Aircraft The HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was named by former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The development plan was approved by the Indian government in 1983. The government's requirements for the Tejas were to develop an all-weather supersonic LCA which could replace the MiG-21. Its main mission is to fight for control of airspace and to offer short-range support. The development of the Tejas...

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya First Grand Prix 1991 Number of Laps 66 Circuit Length 4.655KM Race Distance 307.104KM Lap Record 1:21.670 by Kimi Räikkönen (2008)

San Jose Police Department is ramping up its search for a man who this week attacked a 13-year-old girl after forcing himself insider her home. The man is also suspected of attempting to sexually assault a woman in a grocery store restroom last month. Officers spent Thursday passing out fliers with the suspect's picture in the west San Jose neighborhood where the attacker was seen on surveillance video. Police have also stepped up patrols in the area. Parents in the Cupertino Union School District received an e-mail Wednesday night from school officials, urging families be on alert for the suspect...

ACTION: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Orrin Hatch may soon give the President authority to write gun control restrictions into a “trade agreement.” So click here to contact your Senators –- whether they are liberal or conservative. Urge them to vote against the anti-gun “fast track” bill (S. 995). Will UN-style gun control be rammed down our throats? Gun import bans ... Microstamping of firearms ... Ammunition bans ... The full implementation of the anti-gun UN Arms Trade Treaty ... Illegal amnesty which locks in millions of new, anti-gun voters. This anti-gun wish list could be part of...

The rumors began trickling in about a week before the scheduled vote on April 23: Republican leadership was quietly pushing senators to pull support for subpoenaing Congress’s fraudulent application to the District of Columbia’s health exchange — the document that facilitated Congress’s “exemption” from Obamacare by allowing lawmakers and staffers to keep their employer subsidies. The application said Congress employed just 45 people. Names were faked; one employee was listed as “First Last,” another simply as “Congress.” To Small Business Committee chairman David Vitter, who has fought for years against the Obamacare exemption, it was clear that someone in Congress...

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A sheriff's deputy responding to a home invasion shot the homeowner in the neck Thursday because he refused to drop his gun, authorities said. Two deputies from the Charleston County Sheriff's Office encountered the man at the rear of his mobile home in Hollywood, South Carolina, after two other men fled on bicycles, Sheriff's Maj. Eric Watson said in a news release.

A top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) told a state-run media outlet on Wednesday that Iran is prepared to go to war with the United States and will even “welcome war” to show off Tehran’s power. “We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios and this is no big deal and is simple to digest for us,” said IRGC Lieutenant Commander General Hossein Salami. “We welcome war with the US as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success to display the real potentials of our power,” he added. Salami’s remarks come...

Veneration of the relics of St George on his feast day May 6th.

Temporary upgrades for White House security are set to be approved Thursday following several high-profile breaches, with permanent changes to the White House fence expected in fall 2016. Work begins Friday to beef up security at vehicle checkpoints at the White House Ellipse, and spikes will be bolted to the White House fence in July to deter fence jumpers. A U.S. Secret Service report said Thursday that the White House security fence has been breached "many times" and the fence needs to be modernized. The public will be asked to comment next month on potentially dramatic changes to the White...

San Antonio police are investigating how a small packet of cocaine ended up in a wrapped Nature Valley granola bar. Cynthia Rodriguez of San Antonio told police on March 18 that the bag fell from inside the wrapped bar she was eating. Police are examining the cocaine, the wrapper and the original box of granola bars.

Thirty-three Texas prisoners are graduating from a behind-bars seminary program this weekend -- part of an initiative producing what organizers say are the first "pastor inmates" in state history. Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who heads the chamber's Criminal Justice Committee, said 185 prisoners are working to earn college degrees in biblical studies, including Saturday's graduates. The program only offers Christian and biblical studies, is privately funded, and taught by professors from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary visiting prisons. Whitmire said Texas is "still the toughest state in the union" on violent offenders, but that the program has improved prisoner...

Despite having a relatively moderate record on tax policy as the governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee has wholeheartedly embraced a radically regressive tax plan as a central plank of his presidential candidate platform. For years, Huckabee has been one of the main proponents of the “Fair Tax,” a plan that would replace all federal taxes with a national sales tax. Citizens for Tax Justice and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation have each found that to raise the same amount of revenue as current law, the sales tax rate would have to be about 50 percent. A study by the...

On Thursday night's All In with Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host continued the discussion about Pamela Geller's “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest” in Garland, Texas, as much of America has done all week. As part of the discussion, Chris Hayes said something that might seem surprising coming from someone of his particular political bent and certainly from someone at his particular network. Hayes offered one of the best summaries of exactly why it was so important not only that Geller be permitted to hold the event, as she was, but that the reason for the necessity of such an event...

A priest had to fend off a robber trying to steal his iPad while he read outside a church in San Francisco. The 62-year-old priest was reading his iPad on the steps outside the Saint Teresa of Avila Church in the city’s Potrero Hill neighborhood around 9:45 p.m. when police say a suspect came up to him and grabbed it. The two struggled over the iPad, and the priest started yelling for help. The suspect let go of the iPad, but was able to swipe the priest’s iPhone that was sitting beside him on the steps before fleeing.

On May 6th, 1527 -- 488 years ago today -- military troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, sacked the ecclesiastical capital of Western Christendom, la città eterna, Rome. Sacking Rome was the "thing to do" (as they say) for much of Western history. Everybody who was anybody did it at some point: the Visigoths in 410, the Vandals in 455, the Ostrogoths in 546, the Normans in 1084. By the time that Charles's imperial forces got around to it, sacking the eternal city had almost become passé. Though religious tensions ran high in 1527 -- Reformation being in the...

Mitt Romney, who earlier this year decided against a third presidential bid after briefly flirting with a run, will jump back into the national political scene next month when he hosts GOP presidential hopefuls and some of the party’s biggest donors in Utah. Romney’s 2015 E2 Summit will take place June 11-13 in Deer Valley, a ski resort east of Salt Lake City, according to an invitation obtained Thursday by The Washington Post. Confirmed speakers from the likely 2016 Republican field include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and...

Relations between Germany and Israel are at a crossroads. Is it possible for the German government to continue to steadfastly support the country even as Jerusalem continues to refuse to allow the Palestinians to establish their own state? […] In Berlin a debate is unfolding over whether the old rules still apply in dealing with Israel, only this time it is not being led by right-wing firebrands or errant left-wingers, who have always viewed Israel as a satellite of American imperialism. Instead, these issues are being raised by outspoken friends of Israel. […] Nearly all Palestinian construction projects are turned...

A dangerous new drug is on the streets — it is called flakka or gravel or “$5 insanity.” And there’s a reason it has that last nickname. The drug spikes a user’s body temperature to dangerous levels, gives them paranoid hallucinations and makes them incredibly strong. In one case, a man in Florida ran naked down the street and then tried to have sex with a tree before being arrested. He told cops he was Thor — yes, the mythical god of thunder.