Free Republic

Spiking the ball. It’s not Barack Obama’s style to win a victory with any sort of humility, you understand. That’s not in his makeup. And there’s really little point in mentioning that he was “opposed” to gay marriage as recently as 2012 when he announced his big evolution on the issue, because everyone knows he wasn’t really opposed at all. He pretended to be until he sensed correctly that the politics of the country were changing and it was OK to admit he was for it - which he had been all along. Anyway, if you’re a Christian who is...

Sao Paulo (Brazil) – Tens of thousands participated at the annual Gay Pride march. Participants marched through the heart of Brazil’s business metropolis, this year slogan was:”I was born this way, I grew up so I will always be like this: respect me.” Organizers said they expected upwards of two million people to attend the event, the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. Some marchers carried rainbow flags while one held aloft a giant banner proclaiming “proud to be a transvestite.” Brazilian broadcaster Globo indicated the city authorities had spent in the region of $500,000 on helping to...

Indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was paying an individual from his past to conceal sexual misconduct, two federal law enforcement officials said Friday. One of the officials, who would not speak publicly about the federal charges in Chicago, said “Individual A,” as the person is described in Thursday’s federal indictment, was a man and that the alleged misconduct was unrelated to Hastert’s tenure in Congress. The actions date to Hastert’s time as a Yorkville, Ill., high school wrestling coach and teacher, the official said.

VALDOSTA — A military veteran was detained but not charged by Valdosta State University police after she approached a group of protesters on campus who were walking on an American flag and took it from them. Michelle Manhart, an Air Force veteran, said she was not planning to take the flag from the group, but she had heard about the group’s recent campus demonstrations and wanted to take action. “I did not want anything like this, but I got a call from a student who told me that the flag was on the ground, and they were walking on it,”...

The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen. Southside With You, a drama in the vein of Before Sunrise, chronicles the summer 1989 afternoon when the future President of the United States of America wooed his future First Lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side. Get On Up’s Tika Sumpter will play Michelle Obama (née Robinson), while the search is on to cast the young Barack. As Presidential lore has it, the date took some convincing. Obama, then an idealistic first-year Harvard Law student, took a summer job as...

The November 17 edition of People magazine includes a promotional article for Timothy Shriver’s new book Fully Alive, focusing on “The Forgotten Kennedy,” the lobotomized Rosemary Kennedy, sister to Jack, Bobby and Teddy. "Why are we hiding from this story?" he asked himself, according to People’s Liz O’Neil. "There's nothing to fear here. It's a human story. It's a heroic story.” Heroically lobotomized and institutionalized? Apparently, this fiasco was “the true inspiration for his famous family’s love of service.”

“Get it or regret it!” read the description for a “vintage,” one-of-a-kind Kent State sweatshirt that Urban Outfitters briefly offered for just $129. However, the fact that there was just one available for purchase is far from the most regrettable part of the item: the shirt was decorated with a blood spatter-like pattern, reminiscent of the 1970 “Kent State Massacre.”The sweatshirt, reported by Buzzfeed after a screenshot made the rounds on Twitter, is now “sold out,” according to the site.Here’s what the listing looked like before:[...]

The White House announced that three aides would be attending the funeral of Michael Brown, the Ferguson, MO man killed by police. The blog Weasel Zippers notes that President Obama failed to dispatch any White House personnel to the funeral of Major General Harold Greene who was klled in Afghanistan, but feels compelled to send 3 aides to the funeral of Michael Brown.

It's the Joe Biden you didn’t know — and might not want to see. Secret Service agents dread being assigned to protect the vice president, in part because Biden’s a big fan of skinny dipping, according to a new tell-all book. In “The First Family Detail,” author Ronald Kessler quotes unnamed Secret Service agents dishing about the supposedly “hidden lives” of Presidents and the other important people they protect.

NEW YORK -- There's just no stopping "Jaws." Joey Chestnut scarfed down 61 hot dogs in 10 minutes to win his eighth consecutive championship, barely beating Matt Stonie at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island on Friday. The main course? That came just before the contest, when the 30-year-old Chestnut proposed on the event stage, just steps from the beach, to longtime girlfriend Neslie Ricasa, who said yes. Stonie, who was second in 2013 with 51 dogs, again was the runner-up with 56. Tim "Eater X" Janus was third with 44. While it...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Several combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder were denied access to a Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Viera because their service dogs apparently didn’t have the proper paperwork. The vets were rebuffed by security officers. But when they refused to leave the situation nearly spiraled out of control. Rory Dobis, founder of Paws 4 Boots, told Watchdog.org that he was attempting to assist several veterans in acclimating their dogs to the VA facility where they regularly come to receive physical and mental health treatment.

A Texas family were shocked to discover last week that their 5-year-old Leonberger named Sid they thought was put down six months ago was being secretly kept by a veterinarian and tapped for blood transfusions. Marian Harris, of Aledo, says that last October, she gave long-time veterinarian Dr Lou Tierce permission to euthanize Sid after the doctor told her that the pup was suffering from a congenital spinal disorder. But last Monday, Mrs Harris got a call from a former employee at the animal clinic telling her that her dog has been kept alive in a cage for the past...

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has already proven himself to be one of the most pro-abortion politicians in the country. He’s repeatedly pushed a bill that would make the state that has some of the highest abortion rates in the nation further down the road of unlimited abortions.Now, Cuomo has said that pro-life people have no business living in the state. If the governor has any interest in pursuing national office with a potential Democratic presidential campaign, he’s definitely lost the majority of the country that appreciates the right to life of unborn babies.But maybe Cuomo is doing the...

John Zachary created a Nativity scene for Claremont United Methodist Church that employs a figure of Trayvon Martin as a commentary on gun violence. Previous scenes have had Mary and Joseph as a homeless couple and as war refugees. “You try to put it in a context of how it would be today,” Zachary said.Nativity scenes have a few standard elements: a manger, swaddling clothes, happy parents, sheep, maybe the Three Wise Men. They don’t generally include Trayvon Martin. But there he is, wearing a hoodie, a stream of blood pouring from his chest onto the straw-covered floor of the...

Illegal Aliens and the Environment: Part I -- Texas Illegal aliens have turned a Downtown El Paso alley into a gigantic toilet. Human urine stains the walls and feces is piled up in an alley that's just blocks away from the Convention Center and other tourist hotspots. And authorities don't do a damn thing about it. The Mayor says he has to catch people "in the act". Are you serious? Yet another aspect of the economic and social disaster that is illegal immigration in America (albeit the grossest we've yet seen). And it is just getting worse as more...

On Friday, a 16-year-old girl in Hollywood, Fla., was invited over to a boy’s home to watch TV and listen to music — but there was a much more sinister plot behind the gesture. The visit turned into a real-life nightmare when a group of five teens, three boys and two girls, dragged her by her hair, kicked and punched her, then held her down while she was raped on video, according to police.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, we now have rodents gnawing at the seat of municipal government. Raccoons, rats, mice and even birds have moved in to the soffits underneath the roof of the second floor at city hall. For over a year, workers say, the rodents have been chewing up insulation at the level where city councillors have their offices. The invaders have left their feces all over the aluminum channels installed to keep them out. “There is raccoon s— all over the place,” says Giancarlo Cervini of Martinway Contracting Ltd., the general contractor the city has hired...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) will honor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with this year’s Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center. The award will be presented to Clinton on September 10th, the eve of the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States mission in Benghazi that killed four Americans. The Christian Science Monitor reports that Bush, a potential GOP contender in the 2016 presidential race, is chairman of the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center located in Philadelphia.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) – a nonprofit food watchdog group – Dannon uses an ingredient known as carmine to give some of its fruit-flavored yogurt a pink color. Around 40,000 cochineal bugs are needed to produce just one pound of cochineal extract for the carminic acid, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. In order to obtain the substance, the insects’ bodies are dried and then boiled in water. The CSPI argued that Dannon's use of carmine is cheating consumers, who believe that fruits are providing their yogurt’s color. They also maintain that...