Free Republic

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A Utah man has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Ted Cruz's eligibility to run for president over the senator's Canadian birthplace. Walter L. Wagner asked a judge to declare that Cruz is not a natural born citizen in the suit filed in Salt Lake City on Friday. Wagner is representing himself and says he is a voter with an interest in determining whether Cruz is a legal presidential candidate. No hearings have been scheduled. Cruz was born to an American mother and Cuban father while they lived in Calgary....

Computer automated hedge fund strategies weren't the only winners amid recent volatility. Hedge funds also appear to have timed oil’s recent slump and rebound. That's according to Bloomberg's Moming Zhou, who reports  that hedge fund significantly curbed their bearish positions in crude oil just after it fell to a 12-year low last week -- and then rebounded in its biggest jump since 2008. While oil had a brutal start to 2016 after a disappointing 2015 showing, many are coming around to the idea of a recovery in prices, as Citi argued it could be the trade of the year, some...

Latin America holds the undesirable distinction of having the most cities on the Mexico Citizens Council for Public Security's annual ranking of the world's most violent cities. Of the 50 cities on the list, 41 are in Latin America, including 21 in Brazil. The lion's share of the elevated violence in the region is due to drug trafficking supplemented with gang wars, political instability, and the deregulation of economies triggering widespread poverty. "Narcotics are the biggest black market earner of all. Estimated to be worth more than three hundred billion dollars a year, the global industry has pumped huge resources...

Corruption: We know at least 1,340 of Hillary Clinton’s personal emails contain classified material. This was no accident. Someone deliberately moved highly sensitive content from a secure network to her private account. Is that person a criminal? The smoking guns indicating there has been profound misconduct in the handling of State Department email communications have become “a growing arsenal,” we wrote last week. “If a ‘smoking gun’ means catching (Clinton) in a flat lie or putting national security at risk or being unbelievably, if not criminally, negligent in her handing of classified information,” then, we said, at least seven have...

Monitor Accuses Russia and Syria of 'Revenge Massacres' After Airstrikes Reportedly Kill 164 By VICE News January 24, 2016 | 3:23 pm The death toll from a recent wave of attacks by Russian and Syrian warplanes on areas controlled by the Islamic State (IS) has risen to 164 over the past 72 hours, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The dead are said to include 43 children and 25 women. The UK-based monitoring group said the attacks targeted towns across the countryside in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, and Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS's...

Logan Stephenson, 16, died on Thursday. According to Greenbrier Police Chief K.D. Smith, Stephenson and a friend started drinking the concoction Wednesday. ... Stephenson’s friend was rushed to an area hospital where he is still in a coma. Two other teens have admitted to drinking the same mixture of racing fuel and Mountain Dew.

Americans are fed up and not going to take it anymore because the establishment Demicans - the odious union of backstabbing Democrats and Republicans - in DC are colluding with the rich donor class at the expense of the vast majority of voters. The donor class is made up of those individuals and groups with deep financial pockets who finance elections and enrich politicians. George Soros is an example of a donor class dignitary but the public unions, including teacher unions, are also platinum card-carrying members of the donor class because of the huge amounts of money they spend making...

Last year, two journalists set up a complex and high-level sting against top Planned Parenthood executives; they took undercover video of their meetings with those executives. The videos stunned Americans with their graphic depictions of baby body parts and executives laughing and joking about sale of those baby body parts to research facilities. Now a Harris County grand jury has indicted the real lawbreakers: the journalists. David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of California were charged by the grand jury with tampering with a governmental record, which could carry a sentence of 20 years in prison, as well as a misdemeanor...

(CNN)—Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and 2008 campaign manager said in an interview published Sunday night that she considered quitting her White House post in 1998 during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Patti Solis Doyle, who served as a senior adviser to Clinton when she was first lady, said that she considered resigning, but ultimately resolved to stay: "Why would I punish her by quitting?" 

California's plans for a high-speed rail system are coming undone as indecision over routes undermines progress, the Los Angeles Times reports. In 2012 the state rail authority decided to build the first segment of the $68 billion project from LA's Union Station into the Central Valley, ending well short of the final goal: a 2 hour, 40 minute trip from LA to the San Francisco Bay Area. The 2012 plan would confront the most challenging part of the route first: the rocky Tehachapi and San Gabriel Mountains just north of LA. It would also provide the first physical manifestation of...

As an influential evangelical Iowan, Bob Vander Plaats experienced what it was like to be friends with Donald Trump. The New York billionaire invited Vander Plaats and his family to visit New York several times, refusing to allow them to pay to stay at one of his hotels and lavishing kindness. Then Vander Plaats - president of the Family Leader, which is opposed to abortion and gay marriage - decided to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president instead of Trump. On Tuesday, Trump skewered Vander Plaats on Twitter, calling him "phony" and "a bad guy." The attacks came as...

Formerly eradicated diseases are surging and now we have the Zika virusWhen facing the massive problems associated with an open border, deluges of illegal immigration, and now even government sponsored surges of so-called "refugees," we naturally must discuss our concern about terrorism and violent crime. That, however, is only part of the threat. The uncontrolled and chaotic violation this nation brought to us by President Obama's immigration and refugee schemes pose a number of threats to the homeland as insidious and deadly as the Islamic jihadi. Viruses we had finally eliminated from our lives are returning, and others we should...

A handful of industries are those "love to hate" types of businesses, such as cable-television companies and Internet service providers. The federal government has joined the ranks of the bottom-of-the-barrel industries, according to a new survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Americans' satisfaction level in dealing with federal agencies --everything from Treasury to Homeland Security -- has fallen for a third consecutive year, reaching an eight-year low.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures and declares "You'\'re fired!" at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, June 17, 2015. Reuters Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures and declares "You're fired!" at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, June 17, 2015. Reuters In the announcement speech for his presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against Obamacare. "We have a disaster called the big lie: Obamacare," Trump declared. "I would repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare." Well, that sounds like something a Republican candidate would say. But there is one problem: Trump helped finance the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006...

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has a new book out: “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.” It’s mostly about those old devils the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are billionaires. They own a very big company. They also are very prominent philanthropists, giving hundreds of millions to cancer research, concert halls and other worthy causes. But what makes them hated and feared by progressives such as Mayer is their political work. They help fund some organizations and foundations, some purely educational, some partisan. To listen to the left, they...

Character Abe Vigoda, whose leathery, sunken-eyed face made him ideal for playing the over-the-hill detective Phil Fish in the 1970s TV series "Barney Miller" and the doomed Mafia soldier in "The Godfather," died Tuesday at age 94. Vigoda's daughter, Carol Vigoda Fuchs, told The Associated Press that Vigoda died Tuesday morning in his sleep at Fuchs' home in Woodland Park, New Jersey. The cause of death was old age. "This man was never sick," Fuchs said. He liked to tell the story of how he won the role of Detective Fish. An exercise enthusiast, Vigoda had just returned from a...

Legendary actor Abe Vigoda -- who starred in "The Godfather" -- died under hospice care at the age of 94 ... TMZ has learned. Abe's death had been falsely reported countless times, dating all the way back to 1982. Abe played Tessio in "The Godfather" and also "The Godfather Part II." In fact, he was still doing the voice for Tessio in 'Godfather' video games as late as 2007. His most famous role on TV was as Detective Phil Fish on the '80s sitcom "Barney Miller" ... which once worked the infamous hoax reports of Abe's death into a storyline.

This has gotta be the world's largest shotshellThanks to TAOFLEDERMAUS, you can see this improvised giant shotshell hurl inflatable balls high into the air. This video displays an impressive super shotshell. All of the regular shotgun shell components are there that are usually needed, though significantly larger. The bucket is the shell, Tannerite is the propellant, and then the wadding and the projectiles are inflatable balls, in this case. With a mighty explosion triggered by an accurate shot with an SKS rifle, the balls sail high into the sky. See it here.

Says he did not keep his promise to take her to Turkey A Saudi woman in her 20s took her ageing husband to court for a divorce, saying he did not keep his word to take her abroad for their honeymoon so he could stay with his camels, a newspaper reported on Monday. The woman told the judge in the Gulf Kingdom that her husband, in his 70s, promised before marriage to take her to Turkey for their honeymoon but that he lied to her. 'Instead of going to Turkey, he went to the farm and stayed with his...

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me,...