Free Republic

Colorado Springs, January 21 (World Watch Monitor) — Iran on Monday accused an Idaho man of trying to entice young people to Christianity and away from the country’s official religion, Islam, the man’s American-based legal team says. The trial of Saeed Abedini, 32, of Boise, began Monday in the Tehran courtoom of Abbas Pir-Abbassi, a Revolutionary Court judge notorious for harsh sentences.

The United States has dispatched about 100 military trainers to six nations that will contribute troops to a pan-African force being prepared for deployment to Mali, the State Department said Friday. The initial U.S. trainers will “discuss training and equipping and deployment needs of those countries in the interest of getting them ready to go into Mali,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. The training mission in Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo and Ghana is the largest U.S. involvement to date in preparations for the African force, which is being assembled by the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States, or...

The first couple walked past the FBI building, before stepping back into the limousine before reaching Freedom Plaza. Freedom Plaza is the site of one of the only authorized demonstration zones, where a strip of the plaza is designated a free speech zone.

Squabbling in Washington over the debt ceiling is again raising the specter that the United States may be forced to delay payments on its debt. While the stigma of a default would be damaging enough to investor sentiment, the chaos from a breakdown in financial markets' systems that might result would be even scarier. A failure to make payments on U.S. Treasurys, however brief, would create widespread damage in short-term funding markets, which are crucial to daily operations of financial institutions, investment firms and many corporations, said analysts and investors. Editor's Note: How You Lost $85,000 During the Last Decade....

DEARBORN, MICH. – McDonald's Corp. and a franchise owner have reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging that food at a Detroit-area restaurant with a large Muslim customer base wasn't prepared according to Islamic dietary laws as advertised. McDonald's and Finley's Management Co. agreed Friday to pay $700,000. The money will be shared by Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Ahmed, a Detroit health clinic, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and lawyers. Daklallah said there are only two McDonald's in the United States that sell halal products and both are in Dearborn, which has one of the nation's largest...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the Republican Party should abandon its efforts to curb voter participation through voter ID laws and restrictions on hours for early voting. “Should we really have gone after reducing the turnout of voters in those places where we thought it would make a difference?” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, referring to November’s election, Politico reports. “The Republican Party should be a party that says, ‘We want everybody to vote,’ and make it easier to vote and give them a reason to vote for the party, not to find ways to keep them...

A 51-year old woman in Madrid (Spain) fainted and fell on the subway tracks, just as a train was approaching the station. The story is reported in El Pais. Since it is in Spanish, I will summarize the story here, and you can watch the VIDEO . When the woman fell on the tracks, an off duty policeman jumped on the tracks, picked up the unconscious woman and carried her away from the incoming train. Because of the waving of the people at the station, the conductor was able to stop the train on time, and the policeman lifted the...

Sheriffs have risen up all over our great nation to stand up against the unconstitutional gun control measures being taken. The following is a list of sheriffs and state sheriff’s associations from all over our great nation who have vowed to uphold and defend the Constitution against Obama’s unlawful gun control measures. I applaud these public servants for their courage and conviction. I would encourage other Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers to add their voices to the growing numbers of faithful protectors of our freedom. List of State Sheriff’s Associations 1. Utah Sheriff’s Association List of County Sheriffs 1. Sheriff...

Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in the last election, was booed at President Barack Obama's Second Inauguration today in Washington, D.C. "If things had gone differently in November, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) might have departed the Capitol on Monday as the vice president of the United States. Instead, he faced a chorus of boos as he left the building to attend President Barack Obama's second inauguration ceremony," reports the Huffington Post. The left-leaning website reports that Ryan attended the Inauguration out of duty. "Ryan announced last week that he would be present for Obama's public swearing in at...

A loyal dog whose owner died late last year has apparently been showing up for Mass every day for the last two months at the church where the funeral was held. Tommy, a 7-year-old German shepherd, used to accompany his owner, Maria Margherita Lochi, to services at Santa Maria Assunta church in San Donaci, Italy, according to the Daily Mail, and was allowed to sit at her feet. After Lochi died, the dog "joined mourners at her funeral service" according to locals and "followed after Maria's coffin" as it was carried into the church. Tommy, a stray who was adopted...

+ At the words "they arrived to carnage," the CNN Anderson Cooper report cuts to helicopter footage of seven police officers charging across a parking lot and toward a school. It is breaking news coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting just hours earlier. The three-minute report posted on the day of the shootings at the official CNN website is entitled "Tragedy Strikes at Elementary School." But the school is almost certainly not Sandy Hook. Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341776#ixzz2IeFku7BJ

KALAMAZOO, MI -- What a difference four years make. In 2009, a reported 2,500 people crowded into Miller Auditorium to watch history being made as Barack Obama was sworn in as the first African-American president of the United States. On Monday, the auditorium looked very different. Just 30 people braved the blowing snow and unplowed roads to watch the inauguration ceremonies on a giant screen.

Once again the spotlight is on the Yen. Please consider Japan Learned to Love Deflation in Wage Malaise Facing BOJ

Like millions of Americans, and perhaps multiple millions around the globe, I watched the historic second presidential inauguration of Barak Hussein Obama. As I listened to his speech, which included a reference to his own version of of the greatness of America’s Civil Rights advancements, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall…”I was struck by the spectacle of the President of the United States, the man who...

This is absolute proof that 1)Michelle Obama is a Romulan agent and 2) she is no longer afraid of being exposed.

Today is Obama’s second swearing in, and despite what the Obama-adoring, Kool-Aid- drinking liberal mainstream media tells you, this is a day for sadness, not celebration. It's time to mourn for what Obama is doing to America....and even worse, for what he has planned for the next four years. The economy is in free-fall. Economists are suddenly all agreeing that Obama’s “solution” to the fiscal cliff—gigantic tax increases that are already taking big bites out of paychecks—will crater our projected economic growth for 2013. It’s bad out there, and getting worse every day. The fact is: We are in an...

— When would-be police enter training, they're taught to be prepared for just about anything. But it's a safe bet "naked drivers" don't show up anywhere on the academy syllabus. Sparta police say a drunken, seemingly confused and almost completely nude woman crashed into a home's stone retaining wall early Friday morning. At 12:53 a.m., a resident of Grove Terrace, in the Lake Mohawk section of the township, contacted police to say a white Volkswagen Jetta had just crashed into a stone retaining wall, then fled the scene, Sgt. John-Paul Beebe said.

During President Obama’s first term, the number of persons taking federal food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), increased by approximately 11,133 persons per day. When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the number of SNAP recipients was 31,939,110. By October 2012, the latest month reported, they had jumped to 47,525,329. That means the food stamp program grew by an of approximately 11,133 recipients per day from January 2009 to October 2012.

Public relations–wise, the gun-control movement could hardly have a worse champion than CNN’s Piers Morgan. He’s haughty, he’s self-righteous, and, worst of all, he’s foreign. For the Second Amendment freaks who see Barack Obama as suspiciously un-American, his government as potentially tyrannical, and themselves as heirs to the gun toters who shot their way to liberty at Lexington and Concord, what better foil than a modern-day gun confiscator who actually is English. For years, American conservatives have been calling American liberals wannabe Europeans. Now, with America witnessing its nastiest culture-war skirmish since Bill Clinton’s impeachment, the man helping to lead...