Free Republic

TULARE, Calif.—Newt Gingrich is struggling to regain his political footing in the battle to capture the Republican presidential nomination, but none of that was evident Tuesday during a visit to the World Ag Expo. The former House speaker from Georgia was treated like political royalty by the hordes attending the event. They broke from their routine to shake his hand, seek his autograph or pose for a picture. Gingrich was gracious and patient as people crowded around him as he toured some of the exhibits. “I like him,” said Adam Smith, a Missouri resident who is manning an exhibit on...

For many years high profile American comedians have infiltrated African TV sets with their bawdy brand of humour, yet for many years the continents slew of comedic arts could never catch a break in pursuit of the American dream.Popular South African comedian, Trevor Noah, changed that this month by raising the stakes, not to mention many an eyebrow, with his appearance on the American late night show, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”. Noah’s six minute slot was a hit with local supporters and African Diasporans globally. We certainly don’ t deny that Noah’s stand up set had us standing...

Randy Evans, the Atlanta attorney and long-time associate of Newt Gingrich, has posted a long, long defense of the viability of former U.S. House speaker’s campaign for president at Newsmax.com. It includes these paragraphs: Indeed, in Nevada, Gingrich proved that when deployed, his ground operations could outperform the Paul army. Second, that while in the next two major races Romney’s ability to outspend by 5 to 1 in attack ads and drive down turnout will have real impact in Arizona and his other home state of Michigan , the approach of Super Tuesday — with10 states and 437 delegates at...

(Paulding County, Georgia) Ahead of the much anticipated March 1, 2012 debate here in Atlanta, co-hosted by the Georgia Republican Party, Ohio Republican Party, and CNN, Presidential hopeful, Newt Gingrich has assembled a large list of endorsements from elected state officials communicated through the Gingrich Political Southeast Director, Maria Strollo Zack. Among the state and local officials who are endorsing Newt Gingrich comprise of Georgia Congressmen Austin Scott, Lynn Westmoreland, Tom Price, Jack Kingston, and Phil Gingrey. Former Georgia officials include Congressmen Mac Collins, Bob Barr, and former State Representative and State Department of Transportation Member, Jeff Lewis. Former State...

ABC News and George Stephanopoulos have a credibility problem with conservatives and Middle America. And it seems to be getting worse. It’s not just that ABC News hired Bill Clinton’s White House spokesman and counselor George Stephanopoulos as a journalist; it’s that the pack mentality at ABC News doesn’t see it as a problem. “The planning meetings [at ABC News] have little political diversity. Everyone is left of center and at ease with their liberal ideals. The other viewpoint is rarely raised and never fully represented,” a current ABC News producer told me last week. ,,,,, But the bias at...

President Obama's proposed 2013 budget contains a decade-long surge of tax hikes that, if approved, would affect everything from income to investment to inheritance. The budget blueprint contains roughly $2 trillion in new taxes and fees. When other tax cuts and credits are counted, the net impact from the proposals is still about $1.5 trillion. Though Republicans already are mounting a vigorous campaign against the proposal, many of the tax provisions still could become law unless Congress takes action to stop them. ,,,, But the budget also imposes various fees, such as a hike in the airline "security fee," as...

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich made a campaign stop at the World Ag Expo in Tulare. Gingrich met with residents and farmers, and talked about controversial issues like the California High Speed Rail Project. "I think Californian's better make sure that it's affordable and it's not just one more one more Sacramento boon goggle," said Gingrich. Gingrich also addressed water issues that affect the Central Valley's largest industry, agriculture. "I think we have to revisit the entire way the Fish and Wildlife Service made its judgements and I would insist that we have some kind of economic rationality both with EPA...

~ Freeper Canteen ~ Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Today We Want To Know.... What Kind of Valentine Are You? Click here and take the quiz! To share your results, click "Get HTML", then copy and paste the code into a "Reply" box. Have fun! Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly.

Romania digs out from 15 feet of snow The Associated Press reports: Snow as deep as 15 feet (4.5 meters) isolated areas in Romania, Moldova and Albania on Tuesday and turned a power plant in Kosovo into a park of dazzling ice sculptures. In a winter harsher than many can remember, energy workers struggled mightily Tuesday to break the ice that has encapsulated Kosovo's main power station in Obilic. Steam from the plant's vents coated its pipes and buildings with ice and snow, turning them into unworldly, unrecognizable objects of art.

Patton: Just a Taste of a Second Obama Term First, he came for the General Motors bondholders, but the religious leaders were not GM bondholders, so they did not speak up. Then he came for the oil companies, but they were not oil company executives, and again they did not speak up. Next, he came for control of the nation’s health care system, and again they saw no threat — in fact, many of them supported his plan. We were told we had to pass the plan to find out what was in it. Then he came for our freedom...

Emergency powers for president dropped from cybersecurity billBy Gautham Nagesh - 02/14/12 01:55 PM ET A comprehensive cybersecurity bill introduced Tuesday abandons proposals that would give the president emergency powers over the nation's networks. “The nation responded after 9/11 to improve its security. Now we must respond to this challenge so that a cyber 9/11 attack on America never happens,” said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Public apprehension about the possibility of handing the White House a "kill switch" for the Internet has dogged the cybersecurity debate, fueled by a proposal that would have codified emergency powers...

Photos: Dining with Michelle Obama in Orlandoposted by joe burbank on February, 10 2012 10:36 PM

President Obama holds a significant lead over each of his potential Republican opponents in the general election, according to a poll released Tuesday by CBS News and the New York Times. That includes Mitt Romney, who was even with Mr. Obama last month. The new survey shows the president leading Romney by six points, 48 percent to 42 percent, among registered voters. Last month, the two men were tied at 45 percent each. Mr. Obama's lead over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has surged to a lead in national polls, is eight points: 49 percent to 41 percent. Romney's...

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz told BreitbartTV Editor Larry O'Connor on the Governor Paterson Show on WOR that the Media Matters organization is full of "radical Stalinists" and says the White House and Democratic Party need to clearly separate themselves from the organization. *snip* Speaking at University of Pennsylvania last week, well-known Israel supporter and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz reportedly warned the press about MMFA's operations. "I have, and let me tell you, Max Blumenthal (((SON OF CLINTONISTA VIPER, SYDNEY BLUMENTHAL))) and Media Matters will be singlehandedly responsible for (Obama) losing this election," he is reported saying. The Democrats "cannot win...

1-year-old Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. a pioneer in materials science and renewable energy technologies, today voluntarily filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. As part of its bankruptcy plan, ECD intends to sell through separate sales its wholly owned operating subsidiary United Solar Ovonic LLC (USO) and other assets, including its minority stake in Ovonyx, Inc. On 13 February ECD sold its majority owned subsidiary, Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. (OBC), to BASF Corporation for the gross purchase price of $58 million in cash before transaction fees, minority participations,...

“This is big,” wrote White House director of new media Macon Phillips in a February 23, 2009 blog post, ”the President today promised that by the end of his first term, he will cut in half the massive federal deficit we’ve inherited. And we’ll do it in a new way: honestly and candidly.” Indeed, President Obama did make that promise that day, saying, “today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve...

House and Senate leaders are nearing a sweeping deal on jobless benefits, the payroll tax cut and the Medicare reimbursement rate for physicians, according to several sources familiar with the talks. Under the potential plan, the two-percentage point payroll tax cut would be extended until the end of the year — and the $100 billion cost would be added to the deficit. Unemployment benefits would be extended for the next 10 months, at a cost of $30 billion, and doctors who serve Medicare patients would avoid seeing their payments cut at a cost of $20 billion.

<p>White House to Retirees: Cough Up $13 Billion The White House released details of its personnel and healthcare budget proposals on Monday, and they confirmed pretty much what MOAA had predicted.</p> <p>All told, the TRICARE fee proposals envision shifting about $13 billion in health costs from the Pentagon to retirees over the next 5 years.</p>

Just days after a mysterious incident in which she was reportedly attacked at a Newark motel by an ex-boyfriend, Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer said Tuesday that she has enrolled in a program to be treated for chemical dependency. Lockyer, 40, the wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, said in a statement that she entered a “wellness and recovery center” last week for treatment of the unspecified chemical dependency and “my injuries from the assault.”She also said she was being treated for “chronic pain from a past debilitating car accident,” without giving specifics.“Alcoholism and addiction are diseases from which many...

While we worry about future threats like global warming, and present threats like Iran’s escalating nuclear program, the sun’s propensity for belching out monstrous solar flares (like the Carrington event of 1859) could almost instantly create a world without modern conveniences, or even electricity. The sun could literally “bomb us back to the stone age”.Imagine a world without iPhones, and you’d understand why Homeland security rates New York and Seattle the highest for likelihood of major social unrest. Humans don’t do well in the dark. DHS has taken notice.Above: A modern solar flare recorded Dec. 5, 2006, by the X-ray...

LOS ANGELES — On a day packed with California fundraising events to refuel his campaign, Newt Gingrich insisted Monday that he would not drop out of the GOP presidential contest even though polls show he is not now winning the argument against Rick Santorum that he is the best conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. The former House speaker also appealed specifically to California conservatives, promising to make the state competitive in the general election and pledging to take on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled against the state’s same-sex marriage initiative. “This is a consistently bigoted, anti-religious...

And who wants Global Warming when you can face avalanches, deep snow, and record cold?How much fun can you have with 2 meters of snow on your house, and none of that evil coal powered electricity?What’s happening in Europe and Russia over the last two weeks is not just your average cold-snap. Temperatures reached -28C in Moscow. One point in Russia hit -52.8C (-68F) on Monday. MOSCOW — Some 215 Russians have died this year in a prolonged period of abnormally cold winter weather, the health ministry said Monday as the overall death toll for Europe rose to well over...

As Greece continues to try to push through tough austerity measures to secure desperately needed bailout funds, the bad news just keeps piling up. A much anticipated meeting of eurozone finance ministers was canceled Tuesday. Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the Eurogroup of 17 eurozone finance ministers, said he would hold a conference call in place of Wednesday's meeting. Juncker said it appeared more work needed to be done between Greece and the troika (IMF, EU and ECB) "in a number of areas." He specifically cited the additional €325 million in cuts that are needed to close the fiscal gap, along...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia came close to nuclear disaster in late December when a blaze engulfed a nuclear-powered submarine carrying atomic weapons, a leading Russian magazine reported, contradicting official assurances that it was not armed. Russian officials said at the time that all nuclear weapons aboard the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine had been unloaded well before a fire engulfed the 167-metre (550 feet) vessel and there had been no risk of a radiation leak. But the respected Vlast weekly magazine quoted several sources in the Russian navy as saying that throughout the fire on December 29 the submarine was carrying 16...

President Barack Obama says good ties between with United States and China are essential and help the rest of the world. Obama and China's next leader are getting their first chance to size up the other Tuesday. Obama welcomed Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in the Oval Office. He says he is looking forward to future cooperation.

<p>A national drug shortage is threatening to disrupt cancer therapy for 24-year-old Tammie Miura and at least 100 Hawaii patients who use the medicine as a main source of treatment.</p> <p>Hospital officials nationwide are fearful that the drug, methotrexate — a crucial medicine in the treatment of childhood cancers — will be exhausted within the next two weeks after a major supplier stopped producing it in November. Hawaii has not yet seen a shortage because local hospitals typically stock up on the drug, though medical providers and patients are worried that could soon change.</p>

U.S. House Republican leaders offered to vote this week to extend a payroll-tax cut through 2012 in an attempt to shift blame to Democrats if they balk and Americans' take-home pay shrinks next month. Republican leaders yesterday dropped their demand for spending cuts to offset the $94 billion cost of continuing the payroll tax cut through the rest of 2012. They proposed passing the tax cut while continuing to negotiate on long-term federal unemployment benefits and a measure to prevent a 27 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors. All three provisions are set to expire Feb. 29. The Republicans'...

Fewer Americans received health insurance from their employer in 2011, continuing a trend that has seen the figure decline over the past three years. According to Gallup, 44.6 percent of Americans received health insurance from an employer in 2011, compared with 45.8 percent in 2010. In 2008, 49.2 percent of Americans received their insurance from their employer. ,,,, Meanwhile, the number of Americans without any insurance has increased, climbing to 17.1 percent this year, compared with 14.8 percent in 2008.

The successful plaintiff in “Heller 1,” the most important gun case in the last seven decades was interviewed Feb. 11 at the Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, Va. “When I go to the Nation’s Gun Show, I usually focus on the antique guns,” said Dick Heller, who in 2003 sued the District of Columbia, when the municipal government of the federal city denied his request to register a gun. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment’s preamble, which discussed the value of a well-equipped militia, did not restrict the right to keep and bear arms. The court...

Gun bloggers Sebastian and gay cynic responded to the National Gun Victims Action Council recent announcement of a Valentine’s Day Starbucks boycott by organizing a BUYcott. Greg’s asking gun owners to reward Starbucks for its firearms policy by buying a beverage or food item with a two dollar bill (representing the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms) on February 14th. Not forgetting to “thank the clerk for Starbucks’ support of the Constitution.” Ahead of Starbuck’s Appreciation Day–which has now gone viral—our own Tim Tritt contacted the Seattle coffeesmith to voice his support for their support for gun rights....

Retail sales rose in January, but were dragged down by an unexpected decline in auto sales, according to government data released Tuesday. Overall retail sales were up 0.4% compared to December, the Commerce Department reported. That's only half the gain forecast by economists surveyed by Briefing.com. The biggest problem was a 1.1% decline in auto sales in the government report. Excluding auto sales, retail sales rose 0.7% in the latest report. "January's retail sales data are better than they look, but they don't suggest that consumption growth is about to set the economic recovery alight," said Paul Dale, senior U.S....

<p>U.S. retail sales rose less than expected in January as consumers cut back on car purchases and did less online shopping.</p> <p>Total retail sales increased 0.4 percent after being flat in December, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday.</p> <p>Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales climbing 0.7 percent last month.</p>

The Obama campaign is to “educate” and deploy what it describes as “truth teams” to ensure that any attacks on the president’s record are feverishly countered in the run up to the general election. ABC News reports that teams of Obamanoids will be launched initially in 13 “swing states,” including Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia. “The goal is to ensure that when Republicans attack President Obama’s record, grassroots supporters can take ownership of the campaign and share the facts with the undecided voters in their lives,” the campaign...

WASHINGTON — The nation’s voter registration rolls are in disarray, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States. The problems have the potential to affect the outcomes of local, state and federal elections. Decentralized and paper-based voter registration is prone to error, according to a new report. One in eight active registrations is invalid or inaccurate. At the same time, one in four people who are eligible to vote — at least 51 million potential voters — are not registered. The report found that there are about 1.8 million dead people listed as active voters....

Gasoline prices could soon hit $4 a gallon, a threshold they haven't flirted with since last spring. The average price paid by U.S. drivers for a gallon of regular now stands at $3.52, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which released its latest figures this afternoon. That price represents an increase of 0.04 percent from a week ago and 0.38 percent from a year ago. Experts expect prices to spike another 60 cents or more, with the $4 mark being touched—or exceeded—sometime this summer, probably by Memorial Day weekend, the peak of the summer driving season. The last time...

In a display of compromise rarely seen during his time in office, President Obama has signed into law a $858 billion tax cut bill despite the misgivings of members of both parties. "We are here with some good news for the American people this holiday season," Mr. Obama said. The bill, which was largely worked out earlier this month between the White House and Congressional Republicans, extends the Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans for two years, extends unemployment benefits for 13 months and includes a one-year Social Security tax cut, among other measures.

When a president introduces a budget, there are always phantoms flitting around the room. President Barack Obama's spending plan sets loose a number of them. It counts on phantom savings from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's underpinned by tax increases Republicans won't let happen and program cuts fellow Democrats in Congress are all but certain to block. And it assumes rates of growth that the economy will have to become strikingly undead to achieve. A look at three budget ghosts, sometimes known as gimmicks: Claims about $850 billion in savings from ending the wars and steers some $230...

The Obama administration proposed a sharp increase in spending at the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid – and the reason why might surprise you. Monday’s budget calls for spending $4.82 billion on administrative costs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for fiscal 2013, a 25.9% increase in the previous year’s estimated budget of $3.83 billion. That doesn’t include the much larger sums the agency spends on its actual programs, which provide insurance to seniors, the disabled and the poor. A chunk of Baby Boomers will turn age 65 this year and become eligible for Medicare, but that...

Rick Santorum's debut campaign stop in the state of Washington on Monday was held at a venue next to what has become a base camp for occupy Wall Street protesters. And the group made it known that the presidential candidate was on their turf. Outside the Washington Historical Museum on Monday night, Rick Santorum spent his 45-minute speech yelling over the chants of about one dozen protesters repeating "We are the 99%." Despite the interruptions, he paused only once while police confronted some of vocal young people. By the end of the rally, three arrests were made, according to Tacoma...

...For a Canadian mining company, these same hills look like a billion dollars worth of buried silver. In a stark collision of cultures, the famously mystical Huichol are trying to stop a $100 million, 15-year mining project from starting this year. Their struggle comes as indigenous people from Alaska to the Amazon are rallying to protect not just their environment but also their cultures from decay. This raises a tough question: How do you protect a cosmic portal? “For them the whole mountain is a temple, and the gold and silver below the ground are there for a reason —...

Harvard University Professor Alan Dershowitz is one of the most knowledgeable and unapologetic defenders of Israel among American academics. This has unfortunately opened him to unfair and intellectually dishonest attacks from his fellow liberals.In answering a recent attack by Max Blumenthal, formerly of Media Matters for America (MMfA), Prof. Dershowitz said, “Let me tell you, Max Blumenthal and Media Matters will be singlehandedly responsible for (Obama) losing this election. They (the Democrats) cannot win the election and keep this affiliation with them.”I agree with Prof. Dershowitz, though obviously I think there are many, many more reasons why President Obama...

Several reporters, photographers, and TV camera crews were crowded into a small conference room Friday afternoon at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington. Hundreds of people were lined up outside the room, waiting to enter the "Rick Santorum Meet & Greet" which the program of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) listed as scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. ... .... ... the candidate arrived, eliciting applause and cheers from his waiting supporters. Santorum answered a couple of questions from the press gaggle, then did a brief TV interview with Andrea Tantaros of Fox News, before the crowd outside...

The program has a new time and we added an hour!Tonight, is another broadcast of the Tea Party Express Hour and it starts at 8:00 PM PST and goes until 10:00 PM PST. .878 Listen live at 8:00 PM PST/11:00 EST here We really want to hear from Tea Party Express members and supporters and would love for you to call into the show and let us know what is on your mind. Last week, we had some great calls from around the nation. > We will be taking calls from around the country on our studio line at...

While positive ratings for Congress remain at an all-time low, more voters than ever see the Republican agenda in Congress as extreme. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely Voters say it would be more accurate to describe the agenda of Republicans in Congress as mainstream, while 52% feel extreme is a more accurate description. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

President Obama rolled out an election-year budget on Monday that would delay action to reduce the national debt in favor of fresh spending on Democratic priorities aimed at rebuilding the American middle class. In his final budget request before facing voters in November, Obama called for $350 billion in new stimulus to maintain lower payroll taxes, bolster domestic manufacturing, lure jobs back from overseas, hire teachers, retrain workers and fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. There would be only modest trims to federal health programs and no changes to Social Security, the biggest drivers of future borrowing, despite last year’s raucous...

~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Happy Valentine's Day! Here's some lovely roses for everyone! And chocolate for all! 110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period. About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas. More than 50 percent of cards are sold the week of the holiday, with the largest and most elaborate Valentine cards sold 48 hours before February 14. Conversation Hearts: In 1866, candy manufacturer NECCO made the first "Conversation Hearts" — then called "Motto Hearts."...

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives on Monday dropped their demand for spending reductions to pay for extending a tax cut for 160 million American workers, setting up a likely breakthrough for agreement with Democrats. The about-face cleared the way for the Republican-led House to vote this week to renew for 10 months the tax cut set to expire on February 29. The Democratic-led Senate would likely support the payroll tax extension as laid out by the Republicans, even though they prefer including in the deal provisions on jobless benefits and payments for doctors treating Medicare patients that Republicans...

TEPCO blames high reactor temperature reading on broken thermometer National Feb. 14, 2012 - 06:40AM JST ( 10 ) TOKYO — A rapidly rising temperature reading at one of the reactors in Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant that sparked fears of another meltdown is probably caused by a broken thermometer, TEPCO said Monday. Scientists have been watching the equipment for around a week as it slowly rose above 35 degrees Celsius that the two other temperature gauges on the No. 2 reactor showed. There were concerns when it exceeded 80 degrees that a spontaneous nuclear reaction had started in the...

President Barack Obama’s right hand man said over the weekend that the revised mandate the administration put into place requiring insurance companies to distribute birth control and abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost is here to stay.The Obama administration has revised its controversial mandate that had forced religious employers to pay for health insurance coverage that includes birth control and drugs like Plan B, the morning after pill, and ella that can cause abortions. The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost....

Fans and critics alike may get a kick out of the Obama reelection campaign’s decision to launch a (...furtherst thing from the truth...) to fend off expected attacks on the President’s record. The campaign explains: “The Truth Team is a network of supporters of President Obama who are committed to responding to unfounded attacks and defending the President’s record. When you’re faced with someone who misrepresents the truth, you can find all the facts you need right here—along with ways to share the message with whoever needs to hear it.” ABC News (reports) the campaign is looking to “enlist” and...