Free Republic

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has not uttered one word in Parliament for a year, it emerged today. Although he has kept his counsel in the House, Mr. Brown has been jet-setting around the world over the past 12 months. He has declared 28 trips abroad on the MPs’ register of interests—many of them linked to his humanitarian work. And since he left Downing Street in 2010, he has received £2 million ($3.2 million) in fees and expenses—all of which has been plowed back into his public and charitable activities. …

Two students have been arrested after they brought brownies laced with marijuana to class and shared them with their unwitting professor and colleagues, authorities said. Thomas Ricardo Cunningham, 21, and 19-year-old Mary Elizabeth Essa allegedly made the snacks for “bring food day” at Colorado University on Friday. A female professor was taken to hospital after she began to lose consciousness while teaching at the Hellems Arts and Sciences Building. …

SPALDING COUNTY, GA (CBS ATLANTA) - Lilly Goodson, 5, is in critical condition with severe bites to her face and body after being mauled by one of her family's dogs on Wednesday. Her grandmother, Kathy Goodson, tried to stop the attack. Neighbors also tried to help, but it was Griffin Police Cpl. Stan Phillips that finally ended the attack. "It was heart-wrenching to see. I never want to see it again," Phillips said. Phillips is still shaken up by the events. When he arrived at the home on Ruth Street in Griffin, he witnessed a 120 pound pit bull attacking...

Ghana’s election commission announced Sunday night that the West African nation’s president won re-election, though the main opposition party says it has “credible evidence” the results were manipulated. In a statement streamed live on the Internet, Electoral Commission Chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan declared “John Dramani Mahama president-elect” after securing 50.7% of the vote. Nana Akufo-Addo, the candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), garnered 47.7% of the vote, according to the commission. … But reiterating claims made earlier that the vote had been “manipulated,” the New Patriotic Party issued a statement it has “credible evidence (that) undermines the integrity of the...

PACOLET, SC (FOX Carolina) - Deputies said two women are accused of attacking a customer at a Li'l Cricket store in Pacolet who asked them to give her some space while checking out. According to Spartanburg County deputies, it was all because the victim asked the women to give her some space while she entered the pin code for her debit card at the cash register. "All I wanted was a little bit of privacy, I didn't know it would lead to a beatdown," said the victim, Amanda Parker. On Monday afternoon Parker stopped into the Li'l Cricket on Pine...

Investigative journalist Kerry Picket has joined Breitbart News. Picket formerly edited and wrote for the Washington Times opinion section and its "Water Cooler" blog. She also covered Capitol Hill and campaign and elections for the publication. Picket has regularly appeared as a guest commentator on dozens of cable news networks like Fox News, CNN, Fox Business Network, and the Christian Broadcast Network. She has also appeared in prime time specials on Fox News’s “Hannity” dealing with issues such as crony capitalism and corruption in Washington, D.C. “I’m looking forward to continuing what Andrew Breitbart started--delivering honest news, real news, without...

The following is the [Translated] transcript of the interview made by journalist Jorge Ramos to Gladys and Robert Zimmerman in the program to the point of the Univision Network, on Sunday 9 December 2012. (*Note Gladys speakes fluent Spanish as her first language) The transcript is a little fragmented in translation but you can get the gist. HatTip Ottawa925. The interview: Jorge Ramos: in his first interview for a half in Spanish, accompany us here, in the Studio, Robert Zimmerman, brother of George Zimmerman. Thanks for being with us.

Bostwick Laboratories Inc. will lay off 90 of 154 employees in its Orlando lab between now and next August, the company said Friday. In a layoff-warning letter sent to the state, human-resources manager Michael Tenney said the employees would be let go from the south Orlando facility at 7001 Lake Ellenor Drive. Positions being eliminated range from medical technologists, lab specialists and lab assistants to purchasing and distribution specialists. Virginia-based Bostwick, founded in 1999, specializes in diagnosing cancer through such methods as analyzing prostate biopsies and urine tests...

For the first time in more than three weeks, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met face-to-face today at the White House to talk about avoiding the fiscal cliff. … The White House afternoon talks, conducted without cameras or any announcement until they were over, came as some Republicans were showing more flexibility about approving higher tax rates for the wealthy, one of the president’s demands to keep the country from the so-called fiscal cliff—a mixture of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that many economists say would send the country back into recession. “Let’s face it. He does...

ARINC has announced that there will be additional significant job losses in the first quarter of 2013 as a result of a re-focusing of their business. This is in addition to the job losses and transfers that were part of the sale of their Defense Systems Engineering and Support business to Booz Allen. Eye On Annapolis obtained an internal e-mail from Stephen L. Waechter, CFO, that details the cuts. The email was distributed late last week. (Names of specific employees have been redacted by Eye On Annapolis). Our source tells us that approximately 120 employees have been affected. The sale...

This is not a good time to be starting out in life. Jobs are scarce, and those that exist often pay unexpectedly low wages. Beginning a family — always stressful and uncertain — is increasingly a stretch. The weak economy begets weak family formation. We instinctively know this; several new studies now deepen our understanding. When the labor market operates smoothly, it creates an economic escalator. Just out of high school or college, young workers typically switch jobs frequently until they find something that fits their talent and temperament. Job changes often mean higher pay; people move to advance themselves....

More than 200 school districts across California are taking a second look at the high price of the debt they've taken on using risky financial arrangements. Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed.

In spite of the threat of American weapons ending up in the hands of terrorist groups, President Barack Obama secretly approved an arms transfer to Libyan rebels through Qatar at the height of the rebellion against Moamar Khadhafi, a knowledgeable source noted on Friday. However, American counterterrorists are discovering that some of those U.S. weapons ended up in the hands of radical Islamists including associates of al-Qaeda, according to a law enforcement source who trained police in the Middle East. Some Americans who are retired from the military, as well as intelligence and law enforcement agencies, believe there should be...

A former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has been chained to a bed in a Mexican prison since August. Jon Hammar faces up to 12 years in a Mexican jail on what may be a trumped-up charge of possessing an illegal shotgun. Customs officials had already cleared the shotgun before he entered Mexico. On August 23, Hammar and his friend Ian McDonough were en route to Costa Rica on a surfing vacation when they ran into trouble after crossing the Mexican border. According to McClatchy newspapers, Hammer brought “a six-decade-old shotgun into Mexico,” which his mother referred...

Senior State Department, defense and intelligence officials were well aware that Benghazi and its surrounding area harbored al Qaeda-linked extremists long before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city. Benghazi became famous last year as the birthplace of the revolution that swept Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi from power. But in recent interviews with The Washington Times, several former high-level officials explained that eastern Libya was notorious in Washington’s counterterrorism community for more than a decade as a hub for jihadists leaving for or returning from insurgencies abroad. The agencies’ long-standing knowledge about Islamic...

If you have cable TV service, you probably have at least one set-top box in your house. On Monday, a federal rule change takes effect that could eventually force you to rent more cable boxes. Right now, most cable systems don’t scramble the “basic tier” service which includes local broadcast stations, public, government and education channels, as well as some non-premium programming. Buy basic service and you can plug the cable into a digital set that has a QAM tuner and see these unencrypted channels without a set-top box. Cable companies want to scramble everything coming through their wire, including...

And we thought last month's delayed foodstamp data was bad. The just reported foodstamp number for September was a doozy, with 607,544 new Americans becoming eligible for foodstamps, as a record 47.7 million Americans are now living in poverty at least according to the USDA. The monthly increase was the highest since May 2011, and with August's 421K new impoverished America, over 1 million Americans made the EBT card their new best friend. It is unclear just which atmospheric phenomenon will get the blame for this unprecedented surge in poverty, which comes at a time when the pre-election economic data...

Bob Corker says he — and probably many other GOP senators — would consider raising the top tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans if it meant reforming big entitlement programs such as Medicare.

The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. — John Locke When Christian employers protested the new federal rule that they provide insurance for services that violate their consciences, the most horrifying thing was the solution. President Obama assumed that Americans would accept his bullying of insurance companies if he paused his bullying of churches. And it seems he was correct. For the moment, we still have some freedom of religion, but no "freedom of business." That's not what the Founders called it, of course; this...

Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren warned Sunday that any evidence of chemical weapons being passed from the Assad regime to terrorist groups like Hizbullah would be a “red line for Israel” and could constitute military action. While Oren could not confirm recent claims that the Syrian regime is mixing and moving components for the deadly sarin nerve gas, he said that Israel is watching the situation "very carefully." "Were those weapons to pass into the wrong hands -- Huzbullah's hands, for example -- that would be a game-changer for us," Oren told "Fox News Sunday."