Free Republic

It appears ESPN's Rob Parker will keep his job despite his inflammatory comments about Washington Redskins rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III.

A senior administration official said on Friday that President Barack Obama will nominate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. as his next secretary of state this afternoon from the White House. The 69-year-old, who began his tenure in the Senate in 1985, is expected to be a shoo-in during the Congressional confirmation process and will fill the vacancy left by outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The expected announcement will come after the president's top choice for the spot, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, took herself out of the running for the post given the controversy over her reaction to the attacks on...

Often we find that what is most revealing in covering the higher education beat is what academics reveal about themselves. What follows are vignettes and observations from the Ivory Tower this year: Agents of Inaccuracy November 27, 2012 “Despite the fact that more than half of faculty members say on surveys that an important goal for undergraduate instruction is to ‘encourage students to become agents of social change,’ colleges don’t have much of an effect on student political participation.” —Canadian sociologist Neil Gross The Road to Self-Esteem… November 14, 2012 “It’s healthy to make God look like you. It’s a...

Proposing the National School Shield http://nraschoolshield.com/

President Barack Obama dispatched Mitt Romney a little more than a month ago but now faces an unpredictable new threat: a deeply divided House GOP that doesn’t even seem capable of bargaining with him.  Obama had hoped the election would unclog the works in Washington. His aides often speculated that he’d be freer to negotiate because he didn’t have to run again — and Republicans didn’t have to run against him.  But Thursday’s revolt was a grim reminder of how closely Obama’s future is tethered to that of his political rivals.  If House Speaker John Boehner can’t muscle his own...

On Monday, Alan Korwin, 2nd Amendment activist and author of Gun Laws of America, published a preliminary list of firearms and firearms accessories to be included in the yet-to-be announced, but much anticipated new version of the so-called Assault Weapons Ban. The chief sponsor of the last ban, Sen. Diane Feinstein is said to be crafting new legislation now, which, if passed, President Obama would undoubtedly sign.

THERE was Roger Daltrey, 68, with his open shirt revealing a Palm Beach perma-tan, and abs so snare-tight that they immediately raised suspicion. (“Implants!” charged a few skeptical members of the Twittersphere.) Last week’s star-studded “12-12-12” concert — a showcase of retirement-age rock icons like the Rolling Stones, the Who and Eric Clapton — not only raised millions to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy, but as the “the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden,” as Mick Jagger joked onstage, it also inspired viewer debate about whether is it possible to look cool and rebellious...

INDIANAPOLIS - Three people have been arrested in the explosion on Indianapolis' south side that killed two neighbors and damaged dozens of homes, RTV6 has learned. Monserrate Shirley and her boyfriend, Mark Leonard, who lived in the home, along with Leonard's brother, Robert Leonard, were arrested Friday on numerous charges, including murder and arson. The couple, who lived in the home at 8349 Fieldfare Way along with Shirley's 12-year-old daughter, was visiting a Lawrenceburg casino the night of Nov. 10 when the blast rocked their Richmond Hill subdivision, leveling five homes and damaging dozens more. The death penalty will be...

Archaeologist, William Mills, dug up a treasure-trove of 2000 year old carved stone pipes in the early 1900s and was the first to dig the Native American site, called Tremper Mound, in southern Ohio.When he inspected the pipes, he made a reasonable, but unverified, assumption. The pipes looked as if they had been carved from local stone, and so he said they were. That assumption, first published in 1916, has been repeated in scientific publications to this day, but according to a new analysis, Mills got it wrong.Researchers tested the mineralogical profiles of stone from sites across the upper Midwest...

Minority groups in America live better here than they do in other parts of the world. This is true for both Blacks and Hispanics. “Poor” in America is a description of at least lower middle class or better in many countries around the world. Yet when given a chance, these groups gladly plunged America into a dark and dangerous future to take their “revenge” against our nation. On first glance this lust for revenge seems counterintuitive. But closer examination explains this rage. Both groups are fueled by greed hatred jealousy and a thirst for revenge stoked to a roaring flame...

CALLICOON — A student at the Delaware Valley Job Corps was arrested on Sunday and charged with felonies after threatening to go on a shooting rampage. Sullivan County sheriff's deputies say Patrick Milliken, 20, was charged after three students reported that Milliken, at separate times on Sunday, threatened to go to his home in Newburgh and get a gun, then return "to shoot up the Job Corps and kill himself," Undersheriff Eric Chaboty said. Milliken was found late Sunday hiding outside a building on campus after going missing. Chaboty said deputies are still investigating why Milliken allegedly made the threats...

President Obama's Two Hundred and Fourth Week in Office12/20/2012Benghazi-GateWhere’s Obama in the Benghazi Report?-  In a replay of Abu Ghraib, the government excuses itself at the highest levels.White House hints that FOX News' Benghazi reporting was 'entirely false'Joe Kernan, of CNBC "Kudlow Report...Unclassified Benghazi, To Be Continued;  The Benghazi mission was and continues to be a national security operation for arming, training, funding and transporting Libyan Jihadists from Cyrenaica Province of Libya to Syria to pretend to be the "Free Syrian Army."Carney: Obama and ill Clinton spoke SaturdaySen. Rubio forces truth about Clinton in Congressional hearingsState Department official suggests Libya...

DEVELOPING: Jon Hammar, the U.S. Marine who has been in a Mexican prison since August on a dubious weapon charge is being released today, his father confirmed to FoxNews.com. Jon Hammar Sr. said during a flight layover in Houston that he was on his way to get his son, after he and his wife Olivia received a call Thursday night from their attorney, Eddie Varon-Levy telling them their son was going to be released.

Congressman Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said Governor Rick Perry “had blood on his hands” for supporting the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act

The trend will be your friend if you are the NRA, Hollywood,or video game manufacturers trying to deflect blame for rising gun violence in America. Per both mass killing expert Alan Fox, there is no particular evidece suggesting we are in the grip of a rising wave of mass shootings. A Mother Jones team has put together their own database of mass shootings since 1980 (timeline) and their chart suggests a similar conclusion. And for the factually oriented, this paper by criminologist Duwe from 2006 (hat tip to Jesse Walker of Reason) is fascinating. The media loves a narrative, which...

Who'd have guessed it? When the Chinese aren't busy effecting forced abortions, persecuting political dissidents, sending contaminated products to our shores, or shipping us other junk that malfunctions a month after you buy it, they concern themselves with our well-being. In an article published by the Chinese government-front media outlet Xinhua, the Beijing regime calls on the Obama administration to use the Sandy Hook massacre as a pretext for more gun control. The outlet writes, "Every time tragedy occurs, there are renewed appeals for gun regulation. However, the calls disappointingly always fail." Gee, we wouldn't want to disappoint the Chinese...

WHITE PLAINS (AP) -- Westchester County will not host a gun show early next year in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Conn. County Executive Rob Astorino said it would be inappropriate for the county to hold the event. Former County Executive Andrew Spano had banned the show after the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado. The ban remained in effect for more than a decade. Astorino brought back the show in 2010. His decision comes after Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner called on the county to cancel the show at the government-owned building. Westchester Board of Legislators Chairman...

As we near the so-called "Fiscal Cliff", I feel it necessary to point out, again, that higher tax rates will lead to lower revenue for the federal government. Previously, I only had the words of various economists on my side, and re-iterated those words in defense of keeping the tax rates low. However, recently I worked to come up with a comparison showing how higher tax rates lead to lower revenues, and vice versa. The results actually surprised me, as to how far they were in the favor of the lower rates, when you extrapolated out the difference to a...

Free whitepaper – Shutterfly and Cleversafe: The Path to a Picture Perfect Data Storage Solution A state of magnetism predicted in 1987 has been observed for the first time at MIT, with researchers saying that it might one day find applications in storage and communications technologies. The “one day” is still quite some way off, however, with the researchers only at the very beginning of observing the properties of what’s called a “quantum spin liquid” (QSL). The properties of a quantum spin liquid are revealed in the spin properties of atoms in a crystal. Rather than settling into a stable...