Free Republic

APPLING, Ga. -- Police officers in Thomson are bringing out the big guns to help them fight crime. Officers now have military M-16 rifles, and they didn't have to dig deep in their pockets to pay for them. It's straight to training and target practice as the officers learn how to use the rifles in their fight against crime. "It's very important to me as the chief of police of the Thomson Police Department to return my officers home at the end of every tour of duty safe from harm," said Thomson Police Chief Joe Nelson. A state program gives...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most Americans don't share Rick Santorum's absolutist take on abortion. He's out of step on women in combat. He questions the values of the two-thirds of mothers who work. He's even troubled by something as commonplace as birth control - for married couples. Even among a Republican presidential field eager to please religious conservatives, Santorum's ideas stand out. A Catholic father of seven whose kids are home-schooled, Santorum may seem to wear his conservatism as comfortably as his sweater vests. But he's walked a careful path, keeping the more provocative opinions that helped sink his re-election to...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — President Felipe Calderon on Thursday unveiled a “No More Weapons!” billboard made with crushed firearms and placed near the U.S. border. He urged the United States to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico. The billboard, which is in English and weighs 3 tons, was placed near an international bridge in Ciudad Juarez and can be seen from the United States.

It was recently announced that yet another green energy firm supported by massive amounts of US taxpayer money had gone bankrupt. Ener1, which Vice-President Biden once incorrectly, but perhaps presciently, called “Enron1” filed for bankruptcy. Only a year ago, Ener1 received $118 million in stimulus funds...

ATLANTA – The campaign trail in Georgia is getting crowded. With less than three weeks left until the state's March 6 presidential primary, candidates in the topsy-turvy Republican race are turning their attention to Super Tuesday's biggest delegate prize. Newt Gingrich will play up his roots when he returns to his old home state to campaign for two days, beginning with a rally in Peachtree City Friday night. Surging after a trio of wins in recent weeks, Rick Santorum will focus on his evangelical base, appearing Sunday night at a "God and Country" rally at First Redeemer Church in Cumming....

Give him points for cleverness. President Obama’s birth control “accommodation” was as politically successful as it was morally meaningless. It was nothing but an accounting trick that still forces Catholic (and other religious) institutions to provide medical insurance that guarantees free birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients — all of which violate church doctrine on the sanctity of life. The trick is that these birth control/abortion services will supposedly be provided independently and free of charge by the religious institution’s insurance company. But this changes none of the moral calculus. Holy Cross Hospital, for example, is still required by...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s big mega-donor kicked up a controversy over the issue of contraception today when he urged a return to the good old days when gals had a simple solution for it: aspirin between the knees. We’re not kidding. Wealthy entreprenuer Foster Freiss, who’s backed Santorum’s Super-PAC, made the statements to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell today, after being asked if his candidate has expressed some extremist views on contraception. He appeared to express wonder that women even have to worry about the issue of paying for contraception these days, Politico reports. “On this contraceptive thing, my Gosh it’s...

Susan B. Anthony List to endorse Santorum Published February 17, 2012 BOISE, Idaho – The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List plans to endorse Rick Santorum for president. The group is announcing Friday it will back the former Pennsylvania senator over Mitt Romney and the other Republican hopefuls. It's the first time the group has endorsed in a presidential primary. Jane Abraham, an anti-abortion activist in Michigan and chairman of the group's board, says none of the other candidates has the "record of consistent leadership" Santorum has shown on abortion. Romney has struggled to win over social conservatives nervous about his...

Washington, D.C.—Nevada Senator Harry Reid issued the following statement after the Senate approved the payroll tax cut conference report by a vote of 60-36. The compromise also extends unemployment insurance and protects Medicare patients’ ability to see their doctors.“More than 160 million American workers will keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets this year thanks to this bipartisan compromise. More than four million unemployed Americans will continue receiving checks that help them pay the rent and buy groceries while they look for a job, and millions of seniors on Medicare will continue to have access to their doctors....

Late on February 15, JotForm lost access to jotform.com. The company soon discovered the U.S. government had seized the domain by lodging a request with the site’s domain registrar GoDaddy. Soon after, it had been taken down. Aytekin Tank, co-founder of Interlogy Internet Technologies, and owner of JotForm, later confirmed that he’d been in contact with the agent assigned to his case at the Secret Service. She was busy and couldn’t look at the site for a few days. So millions of web forms and thousands of customers were left without a service and no reason as to why this...

Authorities have arrested a man on his way to the U.S. Capitol for what he thought would be a suicide attack on one of the nation's most symbolic landmarks, Fox News has learned exclusively. The man, in his 30s and of Moroccan descent, was nabbed following a lengthy investigation by the FBI, initiated after he expressed interest in conducting an attack. It's unclear how the FBI learned of his aspirations. The man thought undercover FBI agents assisting him in his plot were associates of Al Qaeda. When he was arrested Friday in Washington, he was carrying with him a vest...

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is threatening to sue TV stations in upcoming primary states that are airing or plan to broadcast an ad from a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC accusing the former House Speaker of supporting the “one-child” Chinese policy that has been criticized as inhumane. The ad in question, which is the work of the Restore Our Future super PAC and is already airing in the former House Speaker’s home state of Georgia, asserts Gingrich “co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.” A letter...

For the 12th time, U.S. Rep. Don Young has gotten legislation passed out of the House of Representatives to authorize opening of a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to resource development. By a 237 to 187 vote, the House today sent H.R. 3408 to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future. Opening ANWR has only made it out of the Senate once, and was vetoed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. “This is a great piece of legislation for the American people,” said Young in a statement released by his office. “Tapping into ANWR’s enormous energy potential...

Seeking to overturn a DOJ judgment that its voter photo identification law, passed in May 2011, violates the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), the state of South Carolina recently announced that it is suing the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder in federal court. The decision by South Carolina comes as the DOJ is vigorously working to stop the spread of states enacting or implementing voter photo ID laws, prompting fears that the Obama administration is undermining the integrity of the upcoming 2012 elections. In December 2011, the DOJ blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law from taking effect...

Hasn’t the MSM been telling us Obama’s mandate was hugely popular? Washington (CNN) – Half of all Americans say they oppose the Obama administration’s new policy concerning employer-provided health insurance plans and their coverage of contraceptive services for female employees including those at religiously affiliated institutions, according to a new national survey. The push by the White House has been sharply criticized by Catholic Church officials, and many political pundits have said that the controversy could hurt President Barack Obama’s re-election chances with Catholic voters. But a CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday also indicates that the vast majority of Catholic...

Des Moines Register articles may only be linked: Denied jobs, blacks in Iowa test new bias legal theory

Authorities in Switzerland have confiscated $6 trillion in counterfeit U.S. bonds at the request of Italian prosecutors, authorities said Friday.

After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today. And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven't sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.

Although there is much talk among political observers about the possibility of a brokered GOP convention in Tampa, Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer is not buying it. "The last time we had a brokered convention was in the 1940’s, and we’re four contests in that have awarded delegates," Mr. Spicer told me on Wednesday. "We are four weeks and four states into a process. I get that it’s the buzz, but I literally spend as much time worrying if some space alien attack happens."

Last Saturday, the Maine Republican Party declared Mitt Romney the winner of the Maine caucuses. The non-binding caucuses were a low turnout affair, but Romney's victory over Ron Paul - who he beat by less than 200 votes - was a chance for Romney to reclaim some momentum in the wake of Rick Santorum's three-state sweep four days earlier. Now, however, it looks like Romney could ultimately be stripped of that victory. If that happens, it will be the second time this cycle Romney has been stripped of a caucus victory. The first came in Iowa, where Santorum was declared...

This is a 2 hour video of Newt’s Republican Revolution done by Investigative Reports. When one has time, s/he may wish to view it in its entirety. But for those who lived through it, one need only view the first few minutes in order to relive the euphoria we all experienced that election night and what it meant for a constitutional America. That many may not wish to vote for Newt today is understandable. Equally understandable is that the MSM,GOP-E and the Dems will always hate him with a passion. However, imo, the venom and vitriol directed at the architect...

CRANSTON, R.I. – A Rhode Island public school district committee on Thursday voted not to appeal a federal court decision ordering the removal of a prayer banner displayed in a high school in a lawsuit brought on behalf of a 16-year-old atheist. The Cranston School Committee voted 5-2 at a public hearing to discuss the suit involving Jessica Ahlquist, a junior at Cranston High School West. After the vote, she said, "I'm thrilled." The hearing lasted more than two hours. The banner, put up in 1963, has been covered since a federal judge last month ruled it was unconstitutional and...

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Leaders of a DeKalb County mosque face legal trouble after mounting code enforcement violations landed them in front of a judge. Mosque leaders said they are being harassed. Neighbors said it’s not a story about religion, but about code enforcement and following the rules. A judge had already put the mosque and its leaders on probation, but that hasn't stopped them from holding services. Attendees arrive by the dozens from around the metro area every Friday. Sometimes there are several hundred people, but their mosque doesn't look like most. "They would park in my yard and...

Enlarge Image Going deep. Drilling for natural gas in shale formations in Pennsylvania. Credit: Ruhrfisch, Wikimedia Commons VANCOUVER—A controversial method of drilling for natural gas, called fracking, has boomed in recent years—as have concerns over its potential to cause environmental contamination and harm human health. But a major review of the practice, released today, uncovered no signs that it is causing trouble below ground. “We found no direct evidence that fracking itself has contaminated groundwater,� said Charles Groat of the University of Texas, Austin, who led the study. The report, released here at the annual meeting of the American...

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tours the World Ag Expo on Tuesday, in Tulare, Calif. (Eric Paul Zamora - AP)LOS ANGELES -- During a three-day fundraising swing through California, Newt Gingrich has laid a support foundation in a state that could become important in a protracted nominating contest, campaign officials said Thursday. "We're pretty pleased with this," said Mike Schroeder, Gingrich's California political director and a former chairman of California's Republican Party. "The thing of it is, this campaign has been up and down. We crested out of South Carolina and raised a lot of small-dollar...

Fox News analyst Sarah Palin hinted Wednesday that it is not too late for her to get into the Republican presidential contest. Asked in an interview if she would be interested in jumping in the race if there is no clear winner by the time Republicans gather this summer for their nominating convention, Palin said she would "do whatever I could to help." Fox Business interviewer Eric Bolling asked about the possibility of a so-called "brokered convention" in Tampa, Florida, in August -- a scenario many consider unlikely. Palin told Bolling she thinks "it could get to that," and if...

The Obama administration has released an economic report that claims everything is coming up roses, and it is making the rounds of the MSM's news outlets. Truth is, when you look into the numbers, it's rather easy to come to the conclusion that the economic reports are as screwy as the administration's employment numbers. In order to convince Americans that his economic measures are working, Obama is claiming there has been an increase in retail sales from December to January by a seasonally adjusted .4%. The administration goes on to explain that while the economy is moving in a positive...

GINGRICH: No. It just means that we're going to have to pick up all those delegates in late May, just before the California primary, when we hope to pick up more delegates out here. That still means that on super-Tuesday, we're looking at Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, we're looking at Ohio. It means the week after super- Tuesday, we're looking at Alabama and Mississippi. Now, we have hopes that we're going to keep picking up delegates everywhere and continue. This race is going on for a long time, I think. And what Texas moving back means, combined with California being in...

A single-engine aircraft carrying drugs broke the temporary flight restriction around LAX as President Barack Obama was returning to the airport aboard Marine One, sources told NBC News. NORAD fighter jets scrambled out of March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County and immediately surrounded the Cessna 182, escorting it to the Long Beach Airport. "After intercepting the aircraft, the F-16s followed it until it landed without incident at approximately (11:30 p.m. PST), where the plane was met by local law enforcement," according to a statement from NORAD. Sources told NBC News that about 10 kilograms of marijuana were discovered aboard...

In his court statement Thursday, according to NBC station WDIV of Detroit, Abdulmutallab praised Allah and ranted that his life and the life of Muslims has changed. He said al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the government says were killed are alive. He called his sentencing hearing a day of victory and claimed U.S. attorneys on his case intentionally misquoted him and mishandled his case "to achieve their Hebrew goals." He said the Jews need to be "ripped out of Palestine … the capital of the Muslim world."

KENTWOOD – Jerome Bush, an 81-year-old lifelong Republican, shook GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s hand Wednesday, recalling doing the same with his father, George Romney, during his campaign for governor more than 40 years ago. “I voted for his dad,” said Bush, the former supervisor of Fillmore Township in Allegan County. “Right now, I’m still undecided if I’m going to vote for him.” It illustrates the difficulty the former Massachusetts governor is facing on the 2012 campaign trail. Three polls released Wednesday show Rick Santorum ahead of Romney in the state where he was born and raised, a place once...

CNN has cancelled a scheduled March 1 debate in Georgia just ahead of Super Tuesday after Romney, followed by Santorum and Paul, announced they would not participate. This makes perfect sense, of course. Why should Republican candidates pay respect to the heart of the South, a region which will be key to Republican success in November. No, because George likely is to go for Newt anyway, the other candidates will not even show up for a debate. Just like all the candidates ran and hid from the New Hampshire debate because Romney was likely to win. Oh, wait.

Army Orders Soldiers to Wear Fake Breasts and 'Empathy' Bellies Soldiers don fake belly, breasts to better understand pregnant troops' exercise concerns By Seth Robson Stars and Stripes Published: February 16, 2012 CAMP ZAMA, Japan – The Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training. This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new...

A funny thing is happening on the way to the clean energy future–reality is setting in. There is ‘incontrovertible evidence’ about the economic growth and job creating effects of America’s unconventional oil and gas production boom – more than 600,000 jobs directly attributable to shale gas development. Even President Obama is praising the job creating benefits of ‘America’s resource boom’. America is getting its energy mojo back and that is good news but not the entire story. How Much Shale Gas is there in the United States? In July 2011 US EIA released a [Review of Emerging Resources: US Shale...

Early in his administration, President Obama, pledged to cut the federal deficit in half. But his recent budget proposal, to say Obama has not kept his promise is an understatement. Determined to keep Americans drowning in debt, Obama proposes to accelerate federal spending $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.8 trillion in 2022, a whopping increase of 53 percent. By spending more than $45 trillion in the next 10 years, the most generous accounting would assume $6.7 trillion would be added to the federal deficit, bringing debt-to-GDP ratio who a crushing 76.5 percent. The slow ending of the Afghanistan war gave...

The U.S. and Afghan governments have begun secret three-way talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told The Wall Street Journal, disclosing an important breakthrough in efforts to end the 10-year war. Mr. Karzai, whose government had protested being left out of recent talks between Washington and the insurgents, added he believes most Taliban are "definitively" interested in a peace settlement.

As I’ve been noting here, one key metric to determine whether the prolonged GOP nomination process is damaging Mitt Romney’s general election prospects is his standing among independents, many of whom remain sour on Obama’s economic performance. Today’s new Pew poll offers another installment. The topline is striking enough — it finds that Rick Santorum is surging among Tea Partyers and conservatives, again suggesting that they just can’t come to terms with Romney as the nominee.

Presidential candidate NewtGingrich says even though rivals RickSantorum and Mitt Romney are currently leading the pack in the important primary state of Michigan — which is also Romney’s home state — the former House speaker has not given up on his chances. Gingrich, who has dumbfounded political pundits before with his repeated surges, also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Wednesday that he continues to confidently look to Super Tuesday. “I’ll be in Michigan campaigning next week — we have every reason to believe we’re going to be competing there effectively — and we’re going to have a number of...

The fact that Americans must cope with ballooning gas prices and energy vulnerability while living in a country with some of the richest untapped energy resources on the planet is an absurdity that can only be accomplished by bad government. By unleashing the American people from regulations and bureaucracy designed to promote the agenda of radical environmentalists, we can tap our enormous oil and natural gas supplies to drive fuel prices down. Most Americans have no idea that the United States is sitting on enough technically recoverable oil to power us at current rates of consumption for over 250 years....

Mitt Romney, whose campaign is preparing a multi-million dollar wave of negative advertising to persuade voters that Rick Santorum should not be president, says he is open to the possibility of choosing Santorum to be his running mate should Romney win the Republican nomination. Romney appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and was asked, "You and Rick Santorum, we haven't seen you go head-to-head yet…In the big picture, could you see a scenario where you two team up?" "Oh, I think it's always possible to have people come together in our party, whether it's Rick and I, or others in...

Remember when George Stephanopoulos, at the New Hampshire Republican debate on January 7, brought up and harped on whether the candidates thought states could ban contraception? Everyone, at least on our side of the aisle, shook their heads in disbelief as to why Stephanopoulos was bringing up the issue. There was no active controversy over contraception, it wasn’t in the news, and there were far more pressing political issues, yet what seemed like an eternity of debate time was devoted to the subject at the insistence of Stephanopoulos. It was, shall we say, something out of left field. When Romney...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Republican candidate Rick Santorum has won support from American conservatives for his views on social issues but a habit of hyperbole may lead to stumbles in his White House bid. In Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday, Santorum compared contraception to deodorant and soap when making a point about why he believes birth control should not be covered by health insurers. "Let's mandate that every insurance policy covers toothpaste. Deodorant. That might be a good idea, right? Have everyone cover deodorant, right? Soap. I mean, where do you stop?" Santorum also fell back on a well-worn Republican criticism that...

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and current Republican presidential primary candidate, visited the Hoover Institution on Wednesday, February 15, 2012, for a series of meetings with Hoover fellows to discuss a broad range of issues, from health care to current economic conditions in the United States and abroad to national security. Gingrich asked for and received fellows’ assessments of the problems associated with these issues and the fellows’ suggestions for solutions. Among those participating in the meetings were Hoover Institution director John Raisian; former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz; former members of the President’s Council...

Three days before the New Year at the shipyard N82, which is the Kola Peninsula, there was a state of emergency - on fire standing in the dock, the submarine. In reality, Russia almost a day on the verge of the largest man-made disaster since Chernobyl, 6 km from Murmansk with a bright flame burning nuclear strategic missile submarine K-84 "Yekaterinburg", which was carrying nuclear missiles, torpedoes and two nuclear reactors. And all the efforts of fire fighters during the long hours did not give the result. In early December K-84 was set for the inspection of the floating dock...

Testifying before Congress this morning, President Obama's acting budget director Jeffrey Zients directly undercut one of the administration's key legal defenses of its national health care law as it nears a hearing before the Supreme Court. In a hearing of the House Budget Committee Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., pressed Zients on whether the penalty that the health care law imposes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance constitutes a tax. Eventually, Zients said it did not. Snip Now the administration is making both arguments simultaneously. Before Congress, Zients is arguing that it is not a tax. But before the...

SAN ANTONIO: In the final moments of Tuesday’s redistricting hearing, a three-judge panel said Texas’ primary elections likely will not occur before May 29. While Judge Jerry Smith, one of three federal judges in the San Antonio redistricting case, said the likely date of the primaries will be May 29, he did not commit to the date. Smith, however, told the state’s two major political political parties that they should prepare proposals based on that assumption The Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party will prepare a schedule in the coming days that will include dates for early...

The firestorm of controversy over the January 20th HHS mandate requiring Catholic and other religious organizations to pay for contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs for their employees shows no sign of abating. This is notwithstanding the Obama administration's "accommodation," announced last Friday, that will permit insurance companies to pass the cost of contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs along to Catholic and other religious employers - as long as they do so surreptitiously, of course. Catholics bishops and countless others have characterized this regulation as direct government interference with the free exercise of religion and thus unconstitutional. In this, they are...

Incentives: Doubling down on industrial policy failure, the administration decides to bump up the taxpayer subsidy for Government Motors' touted electric car. Who said its range wasn't enough to drive us to the poor house? Tucked away in the recesses of President Obama's 2013 budget, a budget that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will not bring to the Senate floor, is a nugget that speaks volumes about the troubles we're in: While delaying the Keystone XL pipeline, the administration plans to increase the subsidy for the Chevy Volt and other "new technology" vehicles to $10,000 per car. "We...

Unemployed Americans who started businesses last year was the lowest in at least a quarter-century. In 2011, 3.3% of out-of-work Americans started businesses, compared to 4.7% in 2010. But recent start-up activity is anemic compared to 1989 when 20.3% of unemployed were starting businesses. Until 1997, start-up activity was typically in double digits. “Basically, it was not a very inviting environment for would-be entrepreneurs,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “While big business definitely began to reap the benefits of the recovery in 2011, conditions were not nearly as fruitful for existing small business, let along...

The Department of Health and Human Services, which thanks to ObamaCare will soon be the most powerful and unaccountable government organization in the Western world, has really been feeling its oats lately. Fresh from its triumph in forcing Catholics to pay for contraception, agents of the Division of Child Development and Early Education moved to seize an improperly packed lunch from a little girl at a North Carolina elementary school, and assess a modest fine against her mother. The Carolina Journal reports on this thrill-packed adventure of the Food Police: A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken...