Free Republic

In my last column, I argued that culture trumps politics, since when many readers have demanded to know what exactly I meant. Well, look no further than the very first post-election issue Republicans were told they needed to address: getting on the right side of Hispanics by neutralizing the illegal-immigrant issue. A population perhaps the size of Australia's or four mid-sized EU nations' strolled into America and decided to stay. In doing so, they broke the law. Literally. That's to say, some of the most basic laws of the nation lie shattered and discarded. Municipally, we have "sanctuary cities." At...

Days after a federal appeals court said the Obama administration is setting overly optimistic production quotas for the struggling biofuels industry, the government issued new standards Thursday that raise production estimates for 2013. New standards announced by the Environmental Protection Agency require production of 14 million gallons of so-called cellulosic biofuels made from grasses and woody material. That's up from an 8.7 million-gallon requirement in 2012 -- when actual production was near zero. An oil industry representative said the Obama administration was thumbing its nose at a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of...

Our weak economy is stumbling yet again. America’s GDP actually shrank during the last three months of 2012, after three years of Obama’s “recovery.” Jobless claims jumped last week “unexpectedly.” And a new report says our national debt will soon be 200 percent of our entire national output — or twice as high as that of Greece. Since the inauguration, what have President Obama and the White House been talking about? Jobs, the economy and debt? Nope. It’s been gun control, same-sex marriage, women in combat and illegal immigration. I’m so old I remember when campaigning on divisive wedge issues...

Click on link.

Turkish news reports say an explosion in front of the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara has injured several people.

Ruh-Ro! Seems 'Two-buck Chuck's Senate confirmation hearing was such an unmitigated disaster, NBC actually censored the live event when it started to get ugly for Hagel... In their -and their brain-dead viewers'- minds, Hagel's getting crispy-fried by GOP senator Lindsay Graham yesterday didn't even happen... you know, just like Bob 'Young-n-Fresh' Menendez's little (lil') girl problem (that also doesn't exist): Doug Ross: NBC is America's answer to the Soviet Union's Pravda. It serves as an unofficial public relations arm of the Obama administration.  It has been caught -- on numerous occasions (e.g., here and here) -- editing video and audio...

CNN chief national correspondent John King could be ousted from the network in favour of new Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper, MailOnline can reveal. King, 49, has already moved out of his office to make way for Tapper, 43, who was poached by new CNN boss Jeff Zucker from ABC. And now sources have revealed that King has not signed a new contract - and has instead signed an extension to his existing deal, leaving his future at the network unclear.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is set to meet with Syrian opposition leader Mouaz Al-Khatib during a European trip in coming days and will discuss U.S. concerns about the Syrian conflict with Russia as well, White House officials said on Thursday. It would be the highest-level U.S. meeting with the Syrian opposition, which is fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a 22-month-old war that has killed more than 60,000 people and forced more than 700,000 to flee Syria, according to the United Nations. Biden is due to meet khatib on Saturday in Munich on the margins of a security...

Ed Koch, the brash, colorful and often confrontational mayor who helped to lead New York City out of its brush with bankruptcy in the 1970s, launching an astonishing municipal turnaround that continues to this day, has died. He was 88.

A global medical technology company has laid off nearly 100 employees at its offices in Tennessee and Massachusetts and is blaming the layoffs on the medical device tax tied to ObamaCare. London-based Smith & Nephew said Thursday it laid off fewer than 100 employees between the two offices, which operate as the company's advanced surgical devices unit, according to The Commercial Appeal. The company specializes in developing orthopedic reconstruction products, has nearly 11,000 employees and operates in over 90 countries, according to its website. The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, which is expected to...

A man whose dog found a lump of rare and valuable whale sick on a beach is expecting to be able to sell it for more than £100,000. Ken Wilman, 50, was out walking on Morecambe beach when his dog Madge started sniffing a lump of rock. He told Sky News: "At first I thought it was a football but as I got closer I realised it was a big stone. "She wouldn't leave it alone. I picked it up and it smelt horrible so I knocked it with my walking stick and a small lump came off. "I put...

Listen to the Quinn & Rose Morning Show from 6:00 to 9:00 Eastern on: www.wpgb.com (104.7 Pittsburgh, Pa) http://wysl1040.com/ (Rochester, NY) http://www.talkradio560.com/ (Frostburg, MD) http://wicofm.com/ (Salisbury/Ocean City, MD WOBX - Outer banks NC httphttp://www.wncoam.com/main.html (Ashland, OH) ://tunein.com/radio/The-War-Room-with-Quinn--Rose-p34761/ for archived shows And now on 166 XM

It is a well-known fact that nobody in Congress ever reads, or even skims, any law, and especially not the fine print, it passes until long after it has been enacted into law. It appears the same is just as true for the biggest pillar of support for the Obama administration: America's labor unions, whose liberal vote every election is instrumental to preserving the outflow side of America's welfare state. As it turns out, it was the same labor unions who enthusiastically supported the primary accomplishment of the Obama administration in the past 4 years, Obamacare, only to realize, long...

King's Row Saturday February 2, 2013 at 08:15 AM (ET) Starring Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan, and Robert Cummings Small town scandals inspire an idealistic young man to take up psychiatry. Drama/1942 Kings Row, TCM This Is The Army Saturday February 2, 2013 at 10:30 AM (ET) Starring Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Joan Leslie A song-and-dance man's son stages a big show starring World War II soldiers. Comedy/Musical 1943 This Is The Army, TCM

The tumult at CNN that has seen several contributors leave the cable news network continued on Wednesday, when Soledad O'Brien's morning show, “Starting Point,” was canceled because her program's small audience was “too ethnic, based on the high concentration of minority viewers.” Despite ending O'Brien's morning show, a CNN spokesman told Politico on Thursday that "Soledad is very important to the network, and we're discussing various options with her.”

Suzanna Gratia-Hupp at GOCRA Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and tells Congress why the 2nd Amendment Exists

PHOENIX — A Republican-sponsored bill barring enforcement of new federal guns laws sparked passionate debate in an Arizona Senate committee that ultimately passed the bill Wednesday. The party-line vote moved the first of several anti-gun control bills introduced in the Legislature to the floor on the same day the U.S. Congress heard a plea from former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to pass new gun control laws. The bill co-sponsored by state Sen. Don Shooter, four other senators and several members of the House of Representatives would bar enforcement of new federal laws affecting semi-automatic firearms or high-capacity magazines. It also...

This is a test... OK it is a challenge. I know there are multitudes of smart people who lurk and post here on FR. Well I've been dabbling in Ciphers and Codes. Why? Because a number of years back someone gave me the Cryptonomicon as a gift. It is a novel by Neal Stephenson. The story is hilarious yet based on actual historic fact. Places like Bletchley Park and people like Alan Turing loom large in the novel. If you are not familiar with the name or place it was where England broke the Enigma Code of the Germans in...

I heard something the other day that needs correction. Rush Limbaugh talked about the "Obama tax increases" and if he was talking about Obamacare tax hikes he's right on the money because Barack Obama owns them. The GOP didn't support it. But I got the impression El Rushbo was talking about the deal agreed to at the beginning of this year that restored 2 percent to the Social Security tax and raised taxes on "the rich." John Boehner is co-owner of those tax increases with Barack Obama. And just like the Obamacare taxes, they are economically destructive. It looks like...

A team of geologists has discovered a large aquifer far beneath Mexico City that could supply potable water to the capital for many decades and serve as a reserve basin in times of drought, the municipal government said Monday. “It’s a deep aquifer of significant proportions, but they haven’t been quantified yet and the next step is to carry out the necessary studies to see its real potential for sustainable extraction,” Mexico City’s water systems director, Ramon Aguirre, said in a radio interview. Although news accounts have said the aquifer could supply the capital’s water needs for a century, Aguirre...