Free Republic

So I read Fifty Shades of Grey. This is the book written by female British author “E. L. James” that became a huge bestseller, devoured by pretty much every woman on Earth except my wife (or so she claims). * So why did I read it? I read it because, as a man with decades of experience in the field of not knowing what the hell women are thinking, I was hoping this book would give me some answers. Because a lot of women LOVED this book. And they didn’t just read it; they responded to it by developing erotic...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she would not be able to get the needed signatures for a procedural tactic to force a vote on immigration reform. "We'll never get to 218 on the discharge petition,” she told Sirius XM Radio’s Julie Mason at an event to be aired Tuesday evening. ”Because the Republicans generally won't sign, but the fact that it is there and the outside mobilization is saying all we want is a vote." House Republican leaders have been reluctant to vote on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. GOP leaders in January released a set...

BELL, Calif. — The auditorium was packed. There were single mothers, day laborers, grandparents pushing infants in strollers and teenagers interpreting for parents. All of them faced a potentially life-changing prospect: Within a year, California will start offering driver’s licenses to immigrants who are living in the country illegally. But one person after another stepped to the microphone and expressed fear that the licenses, far from helping them, could instead be used to deport them. Last year, when California became the most populous state to pass a law permitting undocumented residents to obtain driver’s licenses, advocates for immigrant rights were...

President Barack Obama has lost the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization. The National Council of La Raza is set to declare Obama “the deporter-in-chief” and demand that he take unilateral action to stop deportations. NCLR, the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization, had been the last significant progressive grass-roots immigration-reform organization publicly defending the White House immigration stance. NCLR President Janet Murguía will on Tuesday night demand Obama put a halt to his administration’s deportations. “For the president, I think his legacy is at stake here,” Murguía said in an interview in advance of NCLR’s annual Capital Awards dinner, where she...

<p>As Chevy Chase might have put it on “Saturday Night Live,” Harold Ramis is still dead. And with him has gone the finest era of comedy: The ’70s kind.</p> <p>Ramis and his contemporaries invented the comedy version of the ’70s dramatic antihero — the Dustin Hoffman/Jack Nicholson/Steve McQueen type.</p>

National Personnel Records Center workers here dumped, stashed or otherwise destroyed 4,000 records of individual federal employees, the head of the National Archives revealed in a memo this week.The magnitude of the loss — more than twice what was previously disclosed — is described in an internal memo obtained Thursday by the Post-Dispatch.In it, Archivist of the U.S. David S. Ferriero summarized a recent investigation by the agency’s Office of Inspector General and the FBI, saying he was “outraged” to learn records “had been treated with such disregard.”It appears that some workers took easy shortcuts rather than investing the time...

Missouri executed its fourth inmate in as many months early Wednesday, even as the issue of capital punishment has sparked a new and reshaped political debate in the state and across the country. The Midwestern state has become a key battleground: As lethal-injection drug supplies have been disrupted, states have been scrambling to adapt, and Missouri lawmakers from both sides of the aisle aren’t happy with what they say is excessive secrecy about the process and questions about whether the sentences are being competently carried out. The issue crosses party lines. Missouri’s Democratic governor and attorney general are both pro-death...

A trove of Clinton White House records long processed for release remains hidden from public view at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock — even though the legal basis initially used to withhold them expired more than a year ago. The papers contain confidential advice given to or sought by President Bill Clinton, including communications with then-first lady Hillary Clinton, and records about people considered for appointments to federal office. About 33,000 pages of documents are involved, according to the National Archives, which runs the library. Under the Presidential Records Act, such records can be withheld for up to...

The Dingell dynasty dates back to the era of FDR and there’s very little that can stop it from rolling on. Rep. John Dingell announced Monday he’s leaving the seat he took over from his father nearly six decades ago. And now his wife, Debbie Dingell, is planning to announce in the district Friday her candidacy for the open seat, according to a source close to Dingell. Dingell wasted no time putting together a campaign apparatus Monday, holding a conference call last night with her husband’s former aides. She also may sever ties with the American Automotive Policy Council where...

A Kansas radiologist running for Senate posted grisly X-rays of patients who had been shot on his Facebook page and engaged in joking online banter about the images.Milton Wolf, challenging Sen. Pat Roberts in a Republican primary, acknowledged Sunday that he posted “insensitive” comments online, which he described as “mistakes.”He was responding to a devastating story in the Topeka Capital-Journal, which reported that he wrote that a patient could not complain about the awkward way his head was positioned for an X-ray, published on Facebook, because he was dead. He said a man decapitated by gunfire resembled an alien in...

Former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Zimbabwe to charges that he possessed pornography. Reynolds, who will spend a third night in a Zimbabwe jail, is accused of overstaying his visa and of using his smartphone to take photos and videos of naked men and women in his Harare hotel room. His lawyer had recommended that Reynolds plead guilty, according to The Associated Press , because the charges only require that he be fined and deported. An alleged former bodyguard for the former congressman say he and four others denounced Reynolds to immigration authorities because he owed...

Former Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.) won't switch districts to run for Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod's (D-Calif.) seat. "No, I'm running for the 31st Congressional seat," Baca told The Hill when reached by phone shortly after Negrete McLeod's announcement that she'll leave Congress after one term. "That has no bearing on me making any kind of decision, I've already made my decision to run in the 31st which is my old district and a vacancy. There's no incumbent in that seat, I'm a veteran with a proving track record and experience and seniority matters." Baca lost to Negrete McLeod in a...

Former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) has been arrested in Zimbabwe by immigration officers, according to multiple reports. News outlet AllAfrica reports Reynolds was arrested on Monday on charges of violating immigration laws by carrying expired travel documents and possessing pornographic material. "He has been picked up. Investigations are still underway and revealing information will jeopardize investigations that are underway," Assistant Regional Immigration Officer Francis Mabika told AllAfrica. Reynolds resigned from Congress in 1995 after being charged with 12 counts of statutory rape, solicitation of child porn and obstruction of justice. The former congressman arrived to Zimbabwe in November, and was...

Her perseverance often awes me. Her arrogance sometimes galls me. And her particular braid of high-mindedness and high-handedness almost always leaves me puzzled and exhausted. But what I’ve been feeling for and about Hillary Clinton over the last week is sadness. Does she have even a smidgen of privacy left? Can she utter a syllable or think a thought with any assurance that it won’t be exposed, analyzed, ridiculed? When she was talking decades ago with Diane Blair, whose journals are part of “The Hillary Papers,” she no doubt assumed an audience of one: her dear friend. Her best friend....

<p>Last week, several events took place that were important to their respective regions and potentially to the world. Russian government officials suggested turning Ukraine into a federation, following weeks of renewed demonstrations in Kiev. The Venezuelan government was confronted with violent and deadly protests. Kazakhstan experienced a financial crisis that could have destabilized the economies of Central Asia. Russia and Egypt inked a significant arms deal. Right-wing groups in Europe continued their political gains.</p>

Visitors to Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport may notice the bright, clean lighting that now blankets the cavernous interior, courtesy of 171 recently installed LED fixtures. But they probably will not realize that the light fixtures are the backbone of a system that is watching them. Using an array of sensors and eight video cameras around the terminal, the light fixtures are part of a new wireless network that collects and feeds data into software that can spot long lines, recognize license plates and even identify suspicious activity, sending alerts to the appropriate staff. The project is still...

MIDDLESBORO, Ky. — A snake-handling pastor who appeared on the National Geographic reality television show “Snake Salvation” died Saturday after being bitten by a snake. The Middlesboro Police Department said Sunday that emergency medical workers received a call around 8:30 p.m. Saturday about a snakebite at a church. When an ambulance arrived, emergency workers were told the pastor, Jamie Coots, had been bitten and had gone home. Ambulance crew members went to his house, where Mr. Coots refused medical treatment, they said, and left around 9 p.m. They returned an hour later and found Mr. Coots dead.

Dozens of House lawmakers want the Obama administration to release the secret “black budget” used to fund intelligence agencies. A bipartisan group of 62 members of Congress wrote President Obama a letter on Wednesday asking him to release the fiscal 2015 spending levels for 16 federal spy agencies when he delivers the rest of his budget to Congress on March 4. “The current practice of providing no specificity whatsoever regarding the overall budget requests for each intelligence agency falls woefully short of basic accountability requirements,” the legislators wrote. “As you develop your fiscal year 2015 budget, we strongly urge you...

TUCSON — “My record is 30 minutes,” Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velasco of Federal District Court here said one afternoon, describing the speed with which he had sealed the fates of a batch of 70 migrants caught sneaking into the country. Each of the accused had 25 seconds, give or take, to hear the charges against him, enter a plea and receive a sentence. This is a part of the battle against illegal immigration that many Americans have never heard of. Known as Operation Streamline, it is the core of a federal program that operates in three border states, using...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Michael Sam was the loud country boy who wore a tank top and a cowboy hat. He was the smooth-singing baritone who could irritate his coaches and crack up his teammates with his improvised songs. He was one of the best players to come out of tiny Hitchcock, Tex., where his family was well known for all the wrong reasons. He was an all-American and defensive terror on the football field. He was a regular at the gay club where the bartenders knew him by name. Sam introduced himself to the world Sunday night as an N.F.L....