Free Republic

Medical examiners in Los Angeles are investigating the possible poisoning death of one of their own officials who may have worked on the case of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand who died March 1, the same day Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced probable cause for forgery in President Obama’s birth certificate....

My sources inside Iran tell me that President Obama, seeking to protect the recovering U.S. economy and bolster his chances of being re-elected in November, apparently has entered into an informal agreement with Iran that he believes will defuse the nuclear weapons crisis and keep Israel from attacking the Islamic regime. The agreement calls for the United States to acknowledge that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, and for Iran to hand over its highly enriched uranium, which is necessary for nuclear weaponization. Iran, for its part, though engaging Obama, has no intention of abiding by the agreement and is...

Riled by state-level voting law changes that it alleges are designed to suppress “the political participation of people of color, the poor, the elderly, and the young,” the NAACP is turning to the U.N. Human Rights Council for support. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president Benjamin Jealous and other association representatives plan to visit Geneva next week to address the HRC, a forum that frequently witnesses clashes between Western democracies and repressive states. The NAACP delegation hopes the HRC will take up its concerns about legal initiatives such as voter ID laws passed by more than a...

When President Obama talks about today's sky-high gasoline prices, he almost always laments that there's little anyone can do in the short term to bring them down. "There is no silver bullet" is his common refrain, one he used again at his press conference on Tuesday. But as gasoline prices reach historic highs — they've shot up more than 28 cents a gallon in just the past month — the government could make a dent.

It is a common misconception that Allah is the same as the Biblical Jehovah/Yahweh. The name "Allah" was applied to a pagan Mid-Eastern tribal god long before Mohammed appeared on the scene. -- FaithIssues editor The son of controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone converted to Islam in the Iranian city of Isfahan on Valentine’s Day, then met with Iran’s leaders and declared his solidarity with their nuclear ambitions. “I am a Jewish Christian Muslim,” Sean Stone told CNN’s Piers Morgan on February 23rd. “I want to be able to understand all three religions and have a dialog with people all across...

General Motors earned its largest profit ever in 2011, two years after it nearly collapsed into financial ruin. Strong sales in the U.S. and China helped the 103-year-old carmaker turn a profit of $7.6 billion, beating its old record of $6.7 billion in 1997 during the pickup truck and SUV boom. GM is a vastly different company than it was back then. It’s smaller, has less debt and its contract with the United Auto Workers is less costly. But it took a government bailout and a trip through bankruptcy protection in 2009 to cut its bloated costs. The company made...

Health Care: Democrats used to say the more people knew about ObamaCare, the more they'd like it. Well, the public has had almost two full years to soak it in, and more want it repealed than ever. A Quinnipiac University poll last week found 52% of Americans want ObamaCare scrapped. That's up from 44% last May. Meanwhile, just 39% want to keep it, down from 45%. Even one in five Democrats now says Congress should repeal the law. That hasn't kept liberals from calling ObamaCare foes idiots, which is what Democratic party head Debbie Wasserman Schultz did when asked about...

"As a result, the NYPD deemed it prudent to get a better handle on what was occurring at MSAs," Browne said in an email. He said police monitored student websites and collected publicly available information in 2006 and 2007.But documents show other surveillance efforts continued for years afterward. "I see a violation of civil rights here," said Tanweer Haq, chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse University. "Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever. Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and...

...in 2012, after eighty years of the Ex-Im Bank successfully and happily obeying its charter, President Obama has directed the Ex-Im Bank to violate it wholesale. Instead of only loaning to good foreign risks, he wants them to loan to American companies (in competition with American banks). Instead of only making loans attached to, and collateralized by, American export shipments of physical goods, he wants them to make start-up loans, short-term finance loans, bridge loans, that have nothing to do with export shipments (though they might help the companies become exporters, in the same way that if you give me...

"On the economy, the facts are these. When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s, there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system, and unemployment and debt—lagging indicators—were about to soar even further. No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning...

The Daily Mail stirs up some Euro anxiety with a headline today "Is a super-volcano just 390 miles from London about to erupt?" The story talks about the little known Laacher See volcano in northwestern Germany. It last erupted about 12,000 years ago and the Daily Mail believes it is due to erupt again. It is not considered extinct, merely inactive. An eruption of the Laacher See volcano would destroy much of Europe as we know it. London is 390 miles away. The German capital of Bonn is about 25 miles away. The potential eruption of the Laacher See volcano...

MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Russia will target the American missile defense system in Europe with its own missiles if Moscow cannot reach an agreement with Washington and NATO on how the system will be built and operated. Medvedev said time hasn’t run out for an agreement, but he accused the United States of failing to take into account Russian concerns. 191 Comments Weigh In Corrections? in Share Video Russia will deploy new missiles aimed at U.S. missile defense sites in Europe if Washington goes ahead with the planned shield despite Russia's concerns, President Dmitry Medvedev said...

video is here Rick Perry on Cavuto

Despite repeated warnings that Africa's most dangerous animal could not be tamed, a South African farmer's refusal to give up his beloved pet has ended with tragic results, RadarOnline.com has learned. Marius Els was found lying dead in the river running through his property after his pet hippo, Humphrey, mauled him in a brutal attack, reported the Guardian. The 40-year-old had raised the mammoth animal since he was five months old and even used to sit on his exotic pet's back as they sloshed through the water. "I call him and he immediately responds to come and play with me....

Hertfordshire Police have released the audio of a male 999 caller reporting a bright UFO "coming towards him" in his back garden, only to ring back minutes later to declare that its presence was in fact entirely explainable.The caller told police that he had seen a UFO with "big bright lights" hovering in his back garden. Taking the call seriously the female operator can be heard logging the bizarre information before asking if the UFO was making any "engine noise". The caller replied that it was not, telling her: "I thought it was an aeroplane at first and then its...

The campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, which said Wednesday it had underpaid wealthy donors for use of their private jets, has another ticklish plane problem. For a campaign swing that started late last month, Mr. Perry’s campaign chartered a Gulfstream III owned by a California Mexican-food company, Marquez Brothers International, according to flight records and a Marquez Brothers executive. The same plane was used in a major cocaine-smuggling ring involving a well-known hip-hop music executive that was busted by federal officials last November, according to federal court filings. A pilot who flew the Marquez Brothers plane was among those...

I have good news and bad news for conservatives. But the good news and the bad news are both the same thing: We have six very impressive, lifelong conservative candidates running for the presidency. They are the smartest candidates, the most principled candidates, the most patriotic candidates, the most persuasive candidates, and the candidates with the best ideas. The problem lies in the fact that conservatives do not have a single favorite candidate. They have six favorite candidates! And as long as they remain split between each of their six “favorite” candidates, they will eventually help nominate Mitt Romney —...

Budget: If Senate Democrats hope to pin a government shutdown on Republicans, they've picked a pretty lousy hostage — a Bush-era "green" program that's benefiting two boutique, luxury-car makers. On Friday, the House narrowly approved a stop-gap funding measure that would provide disaster relief and keep the government running after Sept. 30, when the 2011 fiscal year officially ends. Since Congress has so far failed to pass a 2012 budget, the government will shut down Oct. 1 without the six-week spending bill. Keep in mind that the only reason we're in this fix is because Senate Democrats never bothered to...

Subprime Scandal: Bill Clinton has summoned the media to listen to his take on the never-ending financial crisis. But the man who is now portrayed as an oracle was in fact its chief architect. In an interview for his annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, the former president blamed the mortgage meltdown and ensuing record poverty on a "30-year anti-government rant." "The American Dream has been under assault for 30 years," Clinton said, lecturing banks to "clean up their financial books" of all the toxic mortgages they made. This is galling even for Bill Clinton. He's the one...

MEXICO CITY -- His voice cracking with emotion, President Felipe Calderon said Friday that the United States bore some blame for "an act of terror" by gangsters who doused a casino with gasoline and set a blaze that killed at least 52 people. The attack Thursday in Monterrey, an industrial city of 4 million barely a two-hour drive from Texas, stunned Mexicans and seemed likely to mark a watershed in the country's intensifying war against criminal syndicates. In a 20-minute televised address to the nation, Calderon gave an unusually blunt assessment of the causes of Mexico's surging violence before flying...

<p>Pakistan allowed Chinese military engineers to photograph and take samples from the top-secret stealth helicopter that US special forces left behind when they killed Osama bin Laden, the Financial Times has learnt.</p> <p>The action is the latest incident to underscore the increasingly complicated relationship and lack of trust between Islamabad and Washington following the raid.</p>

August 6, 2011 Afghan Chopper Crash Kills 22 SEALs; 37 In All PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO 08.06.11 Taliban claim responsibility for Afghan chopper crash Afghan chopper crash kills 22 SEALs; 37 in all 31 Americans killed in Afghan chopper crash (CBS/AP) KABUL, Afghanistan - Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite unit as the Navy SEALs who killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said Saturday. It was the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war against the Taliban....

Twenty-five U.S. special forces killed early Saturday in Afghanistan were on a mission to rescue another team of military personnel pinned down by insurgents, a U.S. military official told CNN. The helicopter that went down in eastern Afghanistan carried 30 U.S. military members, including 22 Navy SEALs and three other special forces. They were part of a "quick reaction force" sent in to pick up others engaged in a fierce firefight, the official said. In the single deadliest incident since the start of the decade-long Afghan war, the Army Chinook carrying a team of U.S. special forces and U.S. and...

A US helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan has killed 31 US special forces and seven Afghan soldiers, President Hamid Karzai's office says. US media reports that many of those killed were from the elite Navy SEALs. Neither the US nor Nato have confirmed the cause, but witnesses, officials and the Taliban say it was shot down. The incident is believed to be the biggest single loss of life for US forces in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001. The Chinook helicopter went down overnight in Wardak province, the statement from President Karzai's office said. It was returning from an operation...

WASHINGTON -- The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/06/afghan-president-31-americans-killed-in-helicopter-crash/#ixzz1UGZcWiEh

A NATO helicopter was shot down in the eastern province of Afghanistan last night, killing 31 U.S. special forces and seven Afghan soldiers. The aircraft, belonging to NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, went down in the Maidan Wardak province, according to a statement from the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The helicopter was completely destroyed, shot down by the Taliban, Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the Maidan Wardak province said in a phone interview. The incident marks the biggest single loss of life for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001, Associated Press reported. Establishing...

Unprecedented violence on the opening night of the Wisconsin State Fair by rampaging youths prompted extraordinary measures Friday: The head of the fair implemented new rules to keep unattended teens off the grounds at night, and Gov. Scott Walker ordered the State Patrol to help keep order.Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Police Chief Ed Flynn, meanwhile, promised Friday to beef up policing at this weekend's major public events around the city to limit any chance of the State Fair events being repeated.The violence left workers and patrons of the fair in West Allis shaken and reminded many of the mob-like...

By now, you’ve no-doubt heard that residents in San Francisco want to vote on banning circumcision for male children. As if that was not controversial enough - now the state is getting involved. That’s right… Assembly Bill 768 - would apply to any city or county government. Its being introduced in response to a San Francisco ballot measure. AB 768 is designed to derail the San Francisco measure - if its approved by voters. "To enact an outright ban on an expression of personal, medical and religious freedom is an affront to all who value liberty," said Assemblyman Mike Gatto,...

Hours before he died, "Ötzi" the Iceman gorged on the fatty meat of a wild goat, according to a new analysis of the famous mummy's stomach contents. The frozen body of the Copper Age hunter was discovered in 1991 in the Alps of northern Italy, where he died some 5,000 years ago. The circumstances surrounding Ötzi's death are not fully known, but the most popular theory—based in part on the discovery of an arrowhead in his back—is that he was murdered by other hunters while fleeing through the mountains. Scientists previously analyzed the contents of Ötzi's lower intestine and determined...

According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total of $13,630, to a sound and stage company called National Events, apparently for the sound system used at the rally. The money came from the Members' taxpayer-funded office accounts, despite House rules prohibiting the use of these funds for political activities.

The New York Times and Washington Post raised eyebrows this week by hiring a bunch of additional staff to go through every snippet of Sarah Palin's emails as Governor - even asking the public to help them sift through every last syllable: More than 24,000 e-mail messages sent to and from Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. Join The Post in digging through them. We are looking for 100 organized and dilligent readers who will work alongside Post reporters to analyze, contextualize, and research the emails. Think of it as spending some time...

After the tumult of the First World War, noted Winston Churchill, only the intractability of the Irish Question had emerged unscathed. “Great Empires have been overturned. The whole map of Europe has been changed,” he told the House of Commons. “But as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again.” And so it goes after another tumultuous week in American politics. Nearly a third of homeowners are “underwater” — that’s to say, they owe more on their mortgages than the property is worth. Private-sector job growth has all...

After the tumult of the First World War, noted Winston Churchill, only the intractability of the Irish Question had emerged unscathed: "Great Empires have been overturned. The whole map of Europe has been changed," he told the House of Commons. "But as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again." Article Tab : Lisa Benson / Washington Post Writers Group Lisa Benson / Washington Post Writers Group MORE PHOTOS » ADVERTISEMENT More from National Columnists Charles Krauthammer: Debt-ceiling sky not falling Bonnie Erbe: Are Christians giving up opposing...

A series of messages forwarded to The Daily Caller show a top aide to former Alaska Gov. and possible presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocking top political figures and even her boss’s own daughter, Bristol Palin. RedState.com founder and CNN contributor Erick Erickson is “a total douchebag,” wrote Palin speechwriter and domestic policy adviser Rebecca Mansour in a May 22, 2010, message. “Greasy dumb ass with a talent for self-promotion. He threw himself in at the Gov’s SC rally. Self-promotion.” (Erickson said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley invited him to the rally). Mitt Romney supporters are “wacky as hell,” Mansour wrote,...

CLEARWATER, Fla. Randy "Macho Man" Savage, the professional wrestler known for his raspy voice, the sunglasses and bandanas he wore in the ring and the young woman named Miss Elizabeth who often accompanied him, died in a car crash Friday in Florida. He was 58

"3.) The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story? 6.) People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we...

I know, I know, granted you will be even busier very soon. After all, golf season kicks into high gear shortly. NBA and NHL brackets await. Summer vacations and that all-consuming campaign whistle stop tour will no doubt slam you. But I would ask, while the rest of us are also busy working, saving, planning ahead, fighting to protect our Constitution, and trying to keep up with where and why you're spending our Department of Defense funds - I'd ask that you find time to tell Americans the truth about the state of our union and what you are doing...

Governor Palin posted the following Facebook note this morning: Please make up your mind, Mr. President. You can’t vacillate when spending America’s human and fiscal resources in yet another foreign country without good reason. You said that Libyan leader Gaddafi has got to go. Many of us heard that as your call to action and agreed, “Okay, you’re right. He’s an evil dictator who kills his own innocent people, so enforce a no-fly zone so he can’t continue an aerial slaughter.” But then you said our mission in Libya isn’t to oust Gaddafi after all. (Or vice versa on the...

~ EXCERPT ~Sarah Palin rides to the sound of the guns. It was a chilly, wet and blustery afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin — one more appropriate for a late-season Packers game than a springtime political rally. The stirring NFL Films theme,  “The Classic Battle,” would’ve been a more apt musical choice than Van Halen’s “Right Now” to accompany Palin as she entered the stage outside the state capital building to address thousands of Tea Party members, along with a good number of extremely hostile, expletive-hurling government union rowdies.In the last few months, political professionals and insiders have been writing off...

First Homosexual Caveman FoundArchaeologists have unearthed the 5,000-year-old remains of what they believe may have been the world's oldest known gay caveman. Archeologists believe they have discovered a 'transsexual' or 'third gender grave' in the Czech Republic.The male body – said to date back to between 2900-2500BC – was discovered buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age.The skeleton was found in a Prague suburb in the Czech Republic with its head pointing eastwards and surrounded by domestic jugs, rituals only previously seen in female graves."From history and ethnology, we...

John Boehner has just given away the Republican victory of 2010 at the bargaining table. Having failed to stand firm for just $61 billion in a budget of $3.7 trillion, how can we expect him to stand firm over the debt limit extension or the 2012 budget? We can't. The excellent budget proposals of Paul Ryan are no more than a pipe dream now. It violates our campaign promises to the American people. We promised $100 billion of cuts and we delivered $38 billion. Obamacare will not be defunded; welfare spending will not be cut nor work requirements imposed; the...

Firebomb Thrown at Elderly Woman at Pro-Life Prayer Event Kalispell, MT -- A homemade incendiary device was thrown at one of the participants of the 40 Days for Life pro-life prayer vigil at an abortion business in Kalispell, Montana on Thursday night. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/03/18/firebomb-thrown-at-elderly-woman-at-pro-life-prayer-event/

Firebomb Thrown at Elderly Woman at Pro-Life Prayer Event Kalispell, MT -- A homemade incendiary device was thrown at one of the participants of the 40 Days for Life pro-life prayer vigil at an abortion business in Kalispell, Montana on Thursday night. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/03/18/firebomb-thrown-at-elderly-woman-at-pro-life-prayer-event/

This past week, I've seen or read plenty of news analyses suggesting that the Republicans have a weak field of presidential hopefuls for 2012. Not so. I believe many of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination have strategically strong paths to the White House, assuming President Obama still is vulnerable next year. Last week in this column, I put forth an explanation as to why Newt Gingrich is a stronger political force than many imagine. This week, let's consider the Republicans' other potential major candidates for the White House. For starters, there's Mitt Romney. Some will contend his expected...

JaMarcus Russell's return to greatness isn't going as well as planned. The former No. 1 pick of the Oakland Raiders, famous for wearing mink coats and taxing a heavy toll on the team's bench, needs to find a job soon. Foreclosure proceedings have started on Russell's Oakland mansion, according to TMZ. If the former LSU star can't come up with $195,512.05 in backed mortgage payments in the next three months, his house will be auctioned off. Russell purchased the house in 2007 for $3 million before he even signed his contract with the Raiders. The 5,800-square-foot has six bedrooms, six...

Long ago Bill Buckley drummed the anti-Semites out of the conservative movement, and the movement thrived as a result. But the Jew-haters have returned. For years the Texas crackpot, Ron Paul, has been attacking America and Israel as imperialist powers — the Great Satan and the Little Satan, and calling for America’s retreat from the battle against our totalitarian enemies. At the recent CPAC conference Paul’s Jew-hating storm-troopers swarmed the Freedom Center’s table to vent their spleen against Israel as a Nazi state. Now Paul is making a priority of withdrawing aid for Israel — the only democracy in the...

A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.

CHICAGO—A larger-than-expected exodus over the past 10 years reduced the population of Chicago to a level not seen in nearly a century. The U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday that during the decade ended in 2010, Chicago's population fell 6.9% to 2,695,598 people, fewer than the 2.7 million reported back in 1920. Chicago's Exodus View Interactive ..After peaking at 3.62 million people in 1950, Chicago underwent a half century of decline that ended only when the 1990s boom years produced a small gain in the 2000 count. At that time, the city loudly celebrated its comeback. But the recent recession accelerated...

A Pontiac woman’s alleged theft attempt was foiled this week when her motorized cart became stuck at a Rochester Hills Meijer. Jerrie Perkins, 30, is charged with unarmed robbery, resisting and obstructing a police officer and second-degree retail fraud. Her bond was set at $15,000 by 52-3 District Magistrate Nick Camargo during arraignment Thursday. Investigators said Perkins was attempting to leave the Rochester Road Meijer with more than $600 worth of stolen electronic merchandise when her cart got stuck and she was unable to drive out the door. The door alarm was activated when Perkins passed through it around 9:20...

THOUSANDS of British women are so desperate for a bigger bottom they are risking their lives by taking pills designed to fatten up chickens. The poultry tablets are packed with hormones that have been linked to breast cancer and liver problems in humans. Originally they were used by farmers to bulk up chickens - but it was discovered that when taken by women they enhance the size of thighs, hips and bottom.