Free Republic

40 Blake Shelton $5,914,591.11 Shelton has certainly benefited from the visibility he's received as a coach on NBC's "The Voice." The country star spent much of last year touring, which earned him $3.1 million. The release of his 2012 holiday album, Cheers, It's Christmas, which debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, also added to his $2.2 million in revenue from album sales. 39 Mumford & Sons $6,168,737.62 Unlike many of the artists on the Moneymakers list, Mumford & Sons earned most of its money in 2012 from album sales. As the biggest-selling rock act of that year, the...

CONVERSE, Texas -- A suspect in the shooting of a Bexar County deputy has reportedly been shot and killed by officers. News 4 was told there was a two-vehicle accident near Old Cimarron Trail and Gibbs Sprawl Road. The deputy, identified as Deputy Manuel Herrera, a 12-year veteran, was nearby and went to the scene. As he got out of his vehicle and approached the crash site, a man who was involved in the accident opened fire on him. Herrera was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the leg. After the shooting, the suspect and a female...

Follow your emotions anywhereIs it really magic in the air?Never let your feelings get you down.Open up your eyes and look aroundIt's just an illusion...illusion...illusion-Steve Jolly The Fed was able to do with the minutes of its last gathering what President Obama couldn't the day before - scare the hell out of the market! In many ways the White House and Federal Reserve work toward the creation of illusions. In the case of the White House, it is making people think the economy is great and gathering momentum but too fragile to withstand a 2% hit to spending. The Federal...

Video at link Stacy Swimp, president and CFO of the Frederick Douglass Society, spoke at a press conference on gun control on Feb. 22, 2013 in D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) – Gun control dates back to laws before and after the Civil War that prohibited or restricted African Americans from owning firearms, a group of black leaders said Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “History is [rife] with examples. There’s a direct correlation between gun control and black people control,” Stacy Swimp, president and CFO of the Frederick Douglass Society, said at the event. Swimp compared the...

THE average price of gasoline in the United States, $3.78 on Thursday, has been steadily climbing for more than a month and is approaching the three previous post-recession peaks, in May 2011 and in April and September of last year. But if our goal is to get Americans to drive less and use more fuel-efficient vehicles, and to reduce air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases, gas prices need to be even higher. The current federal gasoline tax, 18.4 cents a gallon, has been essentially stable since 1993; in inflation-adjusted terms, it’s fallen by 40 percent since then. ......

<p>Sacramento Assemblyman Roger Dickinson wants to put a 5 cent tax for every bullet you buy in the State of California.</p> <p>Gun advocates say though it just doesn’t add up.</p> <p>“Our politicians have become some of the best gun and amo salesmen in history,” noted Mark Gardner a Sacramento gun owner.</p>

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service on Friday cut the United Kingdom's credit rating to Aa1 from Aaa, citing weakness in the nation's medium-term growth outlook that it now expects to extend for a number of years. The outlook on the credit is stable, the firm said in a statement.

EVIDENCE OF EMPLOYEES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES HIDING FROM JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT PLEADINGS AND DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED BY PLAINTIFFS AND ATTORNEYS, REMOVING CASES FROM THE ELECTRONIC DOCKET, EVIDENCE OF BOGUS CONFERENCES OF JUSTICES BEING REPORTED TO THE PUBLIC, WHEN NO SUCH CONFERENCES TOOK PLACES AND THE JUSTICES BEING CLUELESS ABOUT THE VERY EXISTENCES OF HE CASE, EVIDENCE OF CRIMINAL COMPLICITY OF THE EMPLOYEES OF THE SUPREME COURT AND TREASON IN THE MOST SERIOUS CASES DEALING WITH NATIONAL SECURITY.

Notwithstanding hysterical rhetoric from the White House, the bureaucracies, and the various pro-spending lobbies in Washington, the sequester does not mean “vicious” or “draconian” spending cuts. I wish that was the case.All it does is restrain spending so that it grows by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years rather than $2.5 trillion. We need a much greater degree of fiscal discipline to address the long-term spending crisis – including some real entitlement reform.But the sequester is certainly better than doing nothing.My concern, though, is that feckless and incompetent Republicans will fumble away victory. I explain in this Larry Kudlow...

Goodlatte: "People have a pathway to citizenship right now: It's to abide by the immigration laws..."- by John HillStand With ArizonaUh-oh. Looks like there may be an unscheduled stop on the Obama-McCain-Schumer-Rubio amnesty express. The head of the House committee tasked with overseeing the nation's immigration laws has come out squarely against a "pathway to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants, yet another sign that an amnesty bill could face a tough road to passage. ABC reported that "House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) told NPR he opposes allowing many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States from eventually gaining...

SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Motor vehicle workers in Dayton called police on a man who insisted on wearing a pasta strainer on his head during the taking of his driver’s license photo, according to a police report. South Brunswick police officers responded to the MVC facility on Route 130 on a call that a man renewing his driver's license refused to remove the strainer on his head, according to a police report. The incident occurred about noon on Saturday, Feb. 2. The man, Aaron Williams, 25, who gave an Egg Harbor Township address, told motor vehicle workers the strainer was a...

Dear Fellow Fan, It was wholly a pleasure to get your video of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" as only she could -- and did. It rekindled childhood memories of listening to the Kate Smith radio show every school day morning at 9 in Miss Hinkle's fourth grade class. It was the best part of the day, not counting baseball at recess. It included a wrap-up of the day's news, and so fulfilled the Current Events requirement. But the show wasn't over till the fat lady sang. And did she ever, especially "God Bless America." Her version has no...

The leftwing bias of the American mass media is pervasive and quantifiable. Since the 1980s, studies have consistently shown that the professionals who constitute America’s mainstream news media – reporters, editors, anchors, publishers, correspondents, bureau chiefs, and executives at the nation’s major newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks – are preponderantly left-oriented and Democrat. These studies have excluded commentators, editorialists, and opinion columnists – all of whom make it clear that they are giving their opinions and analyses of the news as they view it. Rather, the focus of the research has been on those individuals whose ostensible duty is to...

Not so long ago, "gender" was something mostly of interest to flirtatious nouns. But then, as the culture became both more vulgar and more squeamish, "gender" replaced "sex" as the distinction between "him" and "her." Now "date," which described how him and her got acquainted, is replaced by "hook up." Gender used to tell us about language; now, it describes behavioral roles. The word sex was unambiguous, referring to the natural biological differences. But the genderfication of sex expands to encompass the experiences of the transgendered, lesbian and male homosexuals. Whereas sex refers to two, gender creates a crowd --...

In the Gospel of Sunday of the First Week of Lent, we are given a lesson of what it takes for us to attain salvation through the saving work of Jesus Christ. “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry” (Luke 4:1-2).

KRAUTHAMMER: First of all, Medicare is today looking after the poor. What Obamacare is doing is a huge expansion of it as a way to absorb people who aren't poor but above the line as a way to essentially have national coverage, almost universal coverage. You can argue yes or no on that, but that is what is being done. I think as a Republican conservative, who opposed Obamacare taking if as a governor, I think you can act honorably either way. ...... (watch the rest at link)

A group of 18 former military and national security officials wrote to President Barack Obama on Friday urging the administration to cancel plans for further cuts in United States nuclear warheads, warning that new arms reductions would undermine U.S. security. The ex-officials, including two former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in the letter to Obama that North Korea’s recent underground nuclear test, and concerns about growing Pyongyang-Tehran nuclear arms cooperation, undermines any further disarmament sought by the president. “In our professional judgment, born of decades of experience with national security policy and practice, America’s ‘triad’ of nuclear-armed...

This week’s Static discusses the police shooting of Lily the border collie, and the training program and potential legislation that were prompted by that tragedy. Mark and Cindy Boling weren’t available for comment last night as Static was being written, but I spoke at length with Cindy Boling this morning and she remains upbeat despite all she’s been through. Imagine unloading groceries at your house and a police officer approaches you on your property. He’s responding to a routine copper theft call but ends up at the wrong address — yours. Your dog (who is like a child to you)...

Msgr. Guido Marini, right, the papal master of ceremonies, applauds with others at the conclusion of Ash Wednesday Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Feb. 13. (CNS/Paul Haring) By Cindy WoodenCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has ordered several changes to the Masses and liturgies that will mark the inauguration of the next pope's pontificate. Rites and gestures that are not strictly sacramental will take place either before a Mass or in a ceremony not involving Mass, Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, told the Vatican newspaper Feb. 22. One of...

The US has seen 934 people killed in 146 mass shootings since 2006, a USA Today analysis of FBI records has found—a number that represents less than 1% of all gun-related homicides. Few of those shootings were the kind of Newtown-esque massacres you might be imagining, however. The paper was using the FBI's definition of a mass shooting, which is one in which four or more people were killed; in most cases, the gunmen knew their victims. "Mass shootings … are the tragedies that capture the public's attention," says the director of the Mayors Against Illegal Gun Violence campaign, which...