Free Republic

Then they discovered the culprit, a genuine “cat burglar” who had made off with more than 20 sets of house and car keys. The neighbours discovered that Milo the neighbourhood moggy was stealing the keys – attached to his magnetic collar. The nine-year-old cat had been fitted with the collar to operate her cat flap and stop other cats sneaking into her home to steal her food. But the collar was also picking up the keys along with its adventures to other people’s homes. It was not until Kirsten Alexander, 27, spotted her pet coming through the cat flap with...

Jennifer Lawrence has been voted the world's most desirable woman. The 22-year-old The Hunger Games star has been awarded the title in a new international poll released on Thursday by online men's magazine AskMen.com after winning over the majority of the 2.4 million voters with her down-to-earth attitude. Editor-In Chief James Bassil said: 'Overall, there's a sense that she's a little more authentic than other actors. 'She's fresh because we haven't seen her all over the gossip pages for the past three or four years.' The blonde beauty was followed in the top five by actress Mila Kunis, model Kate...

A Killing in Louisiana (Ref the 1976 passage of Louisiana's Right to Work Law) “Jim Leslie has been murdered!” I yelled to my wife Lowayne who was still in bed. “He was shot in a motel parking lot in Baton Rouge!” “Surely not,” she said, as she joined me in the kitchen. “Yes, it’s true.” We huddled around the radio and listened to the rest of the alarming story. The reporter said that the early indications were that a hit man with ties to organized labor had killed him. Leslie was the architect of the public relations and advertising campaign...

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has narrowed her list of potential Senate appointees down to five — including the state’s former first lady Jenny Sanford. A person close to the process confirms that the five names under “active consideration” are Sanford, Rep. Tim Scott, Rep. Trey Gowdy, former state attorney general Henry McMaster and Catherine Templeton, the director of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Galina Vishnevskaya, an electrifying soprano who endured repression and exile as one of the postwar Soviet Union’s most prominent political dissidents, died on Monday in Moscow. She was 86.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday found himself defending his legal writings that some find offensive and anti-gay. Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective,” Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.

Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, booted last week from his seat at the Budget Committee for not towing the GOP line, signaled a possible revolt against House Speaker John Boehner during an interview on Friday. In the interview with CNN’s Starting Point, Rep. Amash said he hasn’t committed to voting for Speaker Boehner when the House holds its all-important organizational vote early next year. “We’re going to see how the next few weeks go and whether he’s willing to make amends,” Rep. Amash said. “Right now I’m not very happy with the Speaker.” When the House re-convenes and organizes on January...

If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right ? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution ? That was the question I asked A.C. Brocki, editorial coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers -- who himself had been recommended to me...

A gunman who witnesses say was wearing camouflage and a white plastic mask opened fire in a shopping mall near Portland, Ore., in a rampage that left three dead, including the shooter, and multiple wounded, police said. Authorities say police "neutralized" the gunman but have yet to elaborate on how he died. Witnesses described a harrowing scene, as the gunman appeared to be dressed in body armor while firing off an estimated 60 shots from a semi-automatic rifle. One witness told KPTV that the gunman ran past her and her boyfriend and "had the look of death in his eyes."

On MSNBC this afternoon, Rev. Jesse Jackson called for workers across the nation to hold a major one day strike in protest of the new ‘right-to-work’ laws that passed in Michigan today. “I never thought it would go this far north,” a disappointed Jackson said about the right-to-work movement. “And, yet, these workers in this state must fight back and draw a line in the sand.” Jackson called for a “major strike,” and a “major march on Washington.” “It’s time for a massive, dissident, direct action to bring about the ship in the flow of the wind,” he added.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently opted for two cases pertaining to same-sex marriage. Windsor v. United States challenges the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Had Edith Windsor's deceased “spouse” been a man she would have been saved $363,000 in estate taxes. The other concerns the Ninth Circuit’s overturning Proposition 8; a successful ballot initiative which prevented same-sex marriage in California. Leave lawyering to lawyers, but when pendulums swing sometimes they return like wrecking balls smacking those who previously prodded the pendulum. Government, at least Washington, should not interfere in marriage. It has, sometimes at the insistence of those most adamantly...

Today, as some of you may know, is celebrated worldwide as “Human Rights Day,” where politicians and leaders of all stripes and ideologies climb onto their bully pulpits and loudly endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was first adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948. One suspects, however, that the majority of these politicians have not read this Declaration—or at the very least, that this Declaration would undoubtedly fail miserably if voted upon today in the Canadian House of Commons. If you think I’m engaging in hyperbole, let’s take a look at the opening statement of...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday found himself defending his legal writings that some find offensive and anti-gay. Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective,” Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.

NOTE The following text is a quote: Alabama Men Arrested on Terrorism Charges U.S. Attorney’s Office December 11, 2012 Southern District of Alabama MOBILE, AL—U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown of the Southern District of Alabama and Stephen E. Richardson, Special Agent in Charge of the Mobile Division of the FBI, announced that Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, 25, and Randy Wilson, also known as Rasheed Wilson, 25, both U.S. citizens living in Mobile, were arrested today on terrorism charges filed in the Southern District of Alabama. A criminal complaint signed on December 10, 2012, charges Abukhdair and Wilson with conspiring to...

"Tuesday night, some vandals took it upon themselves to deface the Iwo Jima Memorial at Quantico Marine Base by painting a pink stripe around it. Of course, I’d blame juvenile delinquents, but the juveniles might be those wretched hags of Code Pink – you know, the pink stripe. Not that they’re not juveniles, but they are rather long in the tooth."

New legislation that jumps the death tax to 55 percent of estates exceeding $1 million threatens 526,421 family farms, of about 25 percent of all farms in America. ... Farm values are largely tied up in non-liquid assets like land, buildings, and livestock. Many farm and ranch families would be forced to sell their assets to satisfy Washington Democrats' insatiable appetite for tax money. Up to 24 percent of America's farm and ranch families could be forced to hand over a large chunk of their heritage to the Internal Revenue Service when a family member dies. This would economically devastate...

An unhinged Chris Matthews on Tuesday berated a representative of Americans for Prosperity with the same question 13 times. Talking to Scott Hagerstrom, the Hardball anchor didn't seem to hear the answer, despite Hagerstrom repeating it over and over. Matthews fumed, "Well, who's paying your salary?" [See a montage video below. MP3 audio here.] A calm Hagerstrom appeared on the show to discuss the just-passed right-to-work law in Mighican. He explained, "I work for Americans for Prosperity...This is about freedom for everybody." Matthews repeated over and over: "Who's paying your salary?...No, but who's paying your salary to do it? Who's...

Even as she fades from the national spotlight, the former vice-presidential contender gets plenty of love on the Internet. I'm going to let you in on a little journalism secret. Time was, political reporters knew that any post about Sarah from Alaska was any easy way to get eyeballs. (In one week in May 2010, I wrote three separate items under the rubric "Sarah Palin Real-Estate Watch." All were well-read.) Nowadays, the magic is gone. There's no serious talk of Palin 2016. There are no more reality TV shows. Her endorsement mojo has evaporated, and the term "Mama Grizzly" seldom...

Washington Post music critic Allison Stewart is one of those people who can’t tolerate the idea that listeners under 16 might favor a singer who isn’t “edgy.” In her review of the second album from schoolgirl favorite Bruno Mars, Stewart complained, Mars has been too “vanilla,” too “edgeless,” too “mild to the point of being dead,” and hence he’s “too amiable to give these songs any real misogynistic bite.” But Stewart is pleased this is “not your mother’s Bruno Mars album,” since she can approve of a song with lyrics about getting drunk, snorting cocaine, and making love like zoo...