Free Republic

“Our homeland is bleeding painfully,” is how Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez put it recently at a religious event whose audience included Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. Indeed, Honduras is spiraling into an ungovernable and unstable situation due to the increased operations of international drug syndicates and their local gang proxies within its territory. Last October, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported that Honduras, a nation of 7.6 million, now has the highest homicide rate in the world. Honduras is a victim of what counter-narcotics experts refer to as the “balloon effect,” where heavy pressures on traffickers in Colombia...

Jonah Goldberg makes the case that Libertarians are a essential to the Republican party and that conservatives and libertarians aren't that different.

In spite of a carefully timed announcement by Newt Gingrich's ex-wife Marianne on an "Open Marriage, Mistress Proposal", Gingrich rallied from a 16 point deficit on January 3 to a stunning 12 percentage point slaughter of Mitt Romney less than three weeks later. South Carolina Primary Results The Associated Press announces these South Carolina Primary Results. This goes to show you that "It ain't over until it's over." Dog Whistle Politics The Financial Times reports Victory Horrifies Republican Establishment Gingrich didn’t just win the primary. He crushed Mr Romney, by more than ten percentage points, and that after the former...

At least one well-known conservative has begun speaking out-loud the notion that an Obama re-election might not be the very worst thing that could happen, either to the nation or to Republicans—even to REAL Republicans–that is, conservatives, members of the Party base whose mistrust of Obama is nearly equaled by their mistrust of Mitt Romney and the 2008 ‘Ghost of Romney past’, John McCain. The best-selling author of “Looking out for Number One” and “Restoring the American Dream”, Robert Ringer has been a Libertarian/conservative for decades. And given 5 decades of Libertarian leanings, his support of Ron Paul should surprise...

The University of California is banning cigarettes and all other tobacco products from its campuses over the next two years, in a move designed to both protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke and prevent young people from developing the bad habit. Students and staff alike will be prohibited from smoking anywhere on a UC campus - including outdoor spaces, parking lots and private residences. There won't be any designated smoking areas. But a major benefit, they hope, will be an overall reduction in smoking among those who work or study on the campuses. "Our young students who come here as freshmen,...

Peggy Noonan makes some interesting observations about Iowa's Republican primary results, and Mitt Romney's bruising victory. [quote] The Iowa results almost perfectly reflect the Republican Party, which, roughly speaking, is split into three parts—libertarians, social conservatives and moderate conservatives, who went for Ron Paul, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney respectively. The three parts of the party have been held together by agreement on three big issues: spending (which must be cut), taxing (which must be reformed), and President Obama (who must be removed). These three issues have force. Taxes and spending are the ties that bind, the top and bottom...

Sarah Palin said she wasn't surprised at Rick Santorum's success in Iowa, and warned that the GOP should not take Ron Paul's supporters lightly. Speaking on Fox News before Iowa's final numbers were in, she called Santorum "spot-on" with his policies toward Iran and praised his "social conservative" positions. Her strongest comments came for Paul, however, saying "the GOP had better not marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters after this" because "a lot of Americans are war-weary and we are broke" and Paul has reached that constituency well. She warned that the GOP "better work with them."

An off-duty police officer has been charged with executing a man in a sports bar - after an argument over a game of darts. Riverside County sheriff's deputy Dayle Long, 42, allegedly shot Samuel Vanettes, 36, three times, leaving him to die on the floor of the bar in Murrieta, California. SNIP An altercation allegedly broke out after the police officer told one of the friends 'I’m better at darts than you are', Chris Hull, 39, told Patch.com. 'My buddy says, "Aw, you suck at darts". (The man) says, "That’s why I’m a cop, I can do whatever I want...

Via Ben Domenech’s Transom comes perhaps the least surprising news of the month. That news is that almost exactly half of all Ron Paul supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire self-identity as non-Republican. Without the support of these Democrats and Independents, Paul pulls roughly the same trivial level of support he got in 2008. This has some important implications for the state of the race. First, as Neil Stevens has been patiently noting here on the front page, this makes Paul’s level of support in Iowa potentially much softer than it appears. While these voters can at least theoretically register...

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With all of the talk of Ron Paul’s foreign policy, we wanted to know what is the most dangerous threat to the United States today. As usual, we go to the finest gathering of conservatives minds found on the internet. We go to Free Republic. We would love to know if Iran is the greatest threat. Is China the greatest threat? Is Barack Obama and the Democrat Party the greatest threat? Or is it the Republican Establishment that’s the greatest threat?

Newt Gingrich's fortunes on the prediction betting website InTrade have collapsed in the past three days, amid an unrelenting assault from all sides in the Republican field. After pushing close to 40 percent on the site, he's down to a 16.5 percent chance of winning the nomination. Mitt Romney, who fell as low as 42 percent on the site last week, is back up to 64 percent. The radical swing is a reflection of the growing unease on all sides about Gingrich's viability as the nominee - and recent polling showing that Gingrich's rise to the top in Iowa was...

Last May, when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was pondering a White House bid, Jason Sorens of the University of Buffalo wrote a commentary that went largely unnoticed. Wanting to "take a look at Jon Huntsman," who has been "widely viewed as a 'moderate' Republican, but whose" policies "stake out a position that may be more libertarian than Daniels'," Sorens concluded that after former Gov. Gary Johnson and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Huntsman offered the most libertarian credentials — besting even Daniels. Sorens's views deserve recognition in New Hampshire, a generally conservative state with decisively libertarian leanings, as our first-in-the-nation presidential...

Leads to lower consumption of alcohol DENVER (Nov. 29, 2011) – A groundbreaking new study shows that laws legalizing medical marijuana have resulted in a nearly nine percent drop in traffic deaths and a five percent reduction in beer sales. "Our research suggests that the legalization of medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities through reducing alcohol consumption by young adults," said Daniel Rees, professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver who co-authored the study with D. Mark Anderson, assistant professor of economics at Montana State University. The researchers collected data from a variety of sources including the National Survey...

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Tis the season for finding cross-border drug tunnels. The latest secret passage - equipped with a hydraulic lift, electric rail cars, wooden staircase and end-to-end wood floors - was discovered Tuesday on the U.S.-Mexico border, highlighting an emerging seasonal trend. For three years, authorities have found the most sophisticated tunnels shortly before the winter holidays in what officials speculate is an attempt by drug smugglers to take advantage of Mexico's fall marijuana harvest. The discovery of the 600-yard tunnel resulted in seizures of 32 tons of marijuana, one of the largest pot busts in U.S. history,...

This probably won’t shock most people because we live in an age where the envelope has been pushed so far it’s disappeared over the horizon.  According to the Daily Mail, pink and leopard-print thong panties with no crotches sized to fit a seven-year-old were being sold at Kids N Teen in Greeley, Colorado.  The panties were yanked after a mortified mother complained. As one writer put it: “It’s a new kind of memory: A daughter’s first pair of crotchless panties.” It’s also a sign of the times when a retailer decides there’s nothing wrong with selling sleazy leopard-print thong panties...

Nicholas Cecil Leading Horse was born into the Sioux Nation in Valentine, Neb., on Christmas Eve 1946. The youngest of Lewis and Margaret Leading Horse’s six children, he would grow up to become Tacoma’s most expensive street drunk. From his mid-40s into his early 60s, he would cost taxpayers an estimated $2,407,100. The money was spent on emergency fire, police and medical care, ambulance rides, food, shelter, detox and sobering services, court and jail time, and rehabilitation efforts. A decade ago, The News Tribune added up Leading Horse’s tab from the previous 10 years and put it in the seven-figure...

In September 2009, 28-year-old Jonathan Ayers pulled into a gas station in Stephens County, Georgia, to withdraw money from an ATM. Ayers, a pastor, had just given $23, all the cash he had in his pocket, to Johanna Barrett, a drug addict alleged to be a prostitute to whom Ayers had been ministering. His purpose was to help Barrett pay rent at the motel where she was living with her boyfriend. According to friends and family members, it wasn’t unusual for Ayers to give the money he was carrying to help those to whom he was ministering get out of...

The new federal crackdown on medical marijuana announced October 7 by the four California U.S. Attorneys sent chills throughout the industry. It was a stunning reversal by the Obama administration. Only two years ago, Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden wrote his infamous "Ogden Memo," announcing that the feds wouldn't bother businesses in compliance with their own state laws. It proved a dose of Miracle-Gro to California, where pot-selling stores have multiplied since voters approved the state's 1996 medical marijuana law. By late last year, California reportedly had more dispensaries than Starbucks outlets.

<p>A man and woman were arrested in Dewey Square for allegedly selling heroin to an undercover police officer.</p> <p>Thirty-four-year-old Isaac Bell and 31-year-old Charlene Dumont both face drug charges. The two were living in a tent with Occupy Boston protesters on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.</p>

As Republican realists question President Obama's wisdom in pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq by year's end, one subset of GOP activists is cheering: the followers of candidate for commander-in-chief Ron Paul. That should concern Americans who, understandably, are fatigued by war but who see their country as a force for global stability, not to mention as an influence for universal freedom. The Texas congressman, now in his third run at the highest office (once as the Libertarian Party candidate) brings magnetic appeal to a burgeoning electorate worried about the unsupportable and oppressive growth of government, for which both the...

On Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” on Tuesday, network senior political analyst Brit Hume attempted to make sense of recent “odd” decisions by GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, including accusing GOP campaign strategist Karl Rove of picking on him and releasing a web ad of his chief of staff touting Cain’s accomplishments while smoking a cigarette. The unconventional web ad is “sort of a metaphor for the Cain campaign,” Hume said. “You can never quite figure out what the guy is quite up to. You know, if he were a conventional candidate he would be campaigning in Iowa and New...

With a left-leaning populist movement taking to the streets in cities around the country, conservatives are mostly content to bash the protestors as unemployed hippies jealous of their betters. In contrast, a few savvy figures with libertarian messages appreciate that although they may or may not succeed in influencing Occupy Wall Street, a limited alliance does make sense if possible, and a better opportunity to engage persuadable leftists has never before presented itself. Prof. Larry Lessig, the Harvard academic and political activist, is among the observers calling on Occupy Wall Street and the tea party movement to recognize what they...

Congressman Ron Paul introduced H.R. 1831, the “Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2011,” on May 11. It is a simple bill at just two pages in length, and it would legalize the growing of industrial hemp in the United States. Currently farmers can grow industrial hemp only if they have received a permit from the DEA – a prospect that the agency has made all but impossible for decades. Otherwise, it is illegal to grow. Although Rep. Paul has introduced several bills like this one in the past, there are several reasons that this bill should be passed now. Hemp...

According to a new Gallup poll, a record-high 50 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana use, while 46 percent say marijuana use should remain illegal. When Gallup first posed the question, in 1969, a mere 12 percent of Americans favored it, while 84 percent were opposed. For good or for worse, times have definitely changed. Gallup's "Bottom Line" ponders that if the current trend on marijuana legalization continues, "pressure may build to bring the nation's laws into compliance with the people's wishes." Not right now it won't. In my opinion, this shift in popular opinion means jack for the political...

U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya may weigh on the minds of voters next year, but during the early months of the 2012 election cycle, members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are active political donors are mainly rallying around two candidates, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Those candidates are President Barack Obama and libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Overall, individuals who listed their occupation as one of the branches of the military or the U.S. Department of Defense have donated about $78,000 to presidential candidates, according to the Center's analysis of donors...

The funeral was being held for Hells Angel Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew, who was president of the Hells Angels' San Jose chapter. A member of the rival Vagos motorcycle club is accused of killing Pettigrew Sept. 23 in a Sparks, Nev., casino, sending gamblers diving for cover. The mayor canceled a regional motorcycle rally as a result.

Aerial surveillance missions such as this one are part of Gov. Rick Perry's multifaceted law enforcement effort, which has operated along Texas' portion of the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border for five years. Unique to Texas, and put in place because of what Perry said was inadequate enforcement by the federal government, the operation is designed to marshal the forces of dozens of state, federal and local entities in a cooperative "boots-on-the ground" offensive in border counties. The Republican governor has repeatedly cited the law enforcement effort as a display piece in his presidential campaign, while warning that drug violence from Mexico...

Here’s one of the protesters Reason.tv spoke to at Occupy Wall Street in Los Angeles on October 12, 2011. She identifies herself as Patricia McAllister and as an employee of Los Angeles Unified School District. “I think that the Zionist Jews, who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government… they need to be run out of this country,” she said.

Pentagon counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations around the world were abruptly suspended this month when the Defense Department officials overseeing the programs failed to ensure they were funded by congressional authorizations, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. The lapse has caused serious national security and diplomatic problems for the U.S. military, according to Defense Department officials. The authorizations cover joint counternarcotics operations with foreign governments, as well as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. The mix-up occurred when the anti-narcotics programs were not included on a list provided to Congress of operations that needed to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal authorities in California vowed to shut down dozens of pot growing and sales operations in a major crackdown, saying the worst offenders are using the cover of medical marijuana to act as storefront drug dealers. The aggressive crackdown comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana. Prosecutors Friday described it as the first coordinated statewide offensive against marijuana dealers and suppliers who use California’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law as legal cover for running sophisticated drug trafficking ventures in plain sight.

Two men were arrested in St. Cloud after police say they dialed the wrong number and attempted to buy a pound of marijuana from a police officer. According to St. Cloud Police, a uniformed St. Cloud patrol officer received the call at 11:33 p.m. Sunday. After the officer received multiple phone calls from the suspect, a meeting was arranged on the 1100 block of 15th Avenue South. Police say the men fled when they met with uniformed officers, but were quickly apprehended and taken into custody. The two men have been identified by police as 21-year-old Kewon Donte Johnson of...

MEZHDURECHENSK, RUSSIA (BNO NEWS) -- A grandmother committed suicide in southern Russia on Saturday after two dogs mauled a one-year-old baby to death, local media reported on Monday. The tragedy happened on Saturday at a home in Mezhdurechensk, a city in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast, when a one-year-old baby boy was left alone at a home. He is believed to have walked or crawled to a room where two dogs, a Staffordshire terrier and a pitbull, were kept. The Russian ITAR-TASS news agency, citing police, reported that the boy's grandmother committed suicide after she found the lifeless body. It was not...

FORT BRAGG, Calif. – A man suspected in the fatal shootings of a Fort Bragg councilman and a county land trust official was shot and killed Saturday after a massive manhunt in the redwood forests of Northern California, a sheriff's deputy said. Deputy Ron Parsons of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department said Aaron Bassler was shot and killed around midday,

I made the point the other day that Sarah Palin’s speech in Indianola, Iowa, went to the core of the Tea Party movement: "I don’t know what the future holds for Palin, whether she will be a candidate or just a powerful voice against crony capitalism. I also don’t know whether the two are compatible. I am not convinced that even the Republican electorate is ready for the message. That’s for another day. What I do know is that in attacking crony capitalism, Palin gave voice to those of us who refuse to buy into the Democratic narrative that the...

The organisation, which calls itself B4U-Act, is lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the guideline of standards on mental health that is put together by the American Psychiatric Association, FOXNews.com said. The group says its mission is to help paedophiles before they create a crisis, and to do so by offering a less critical view of the disorder. "Stigmatising and stereotyping minor-attracted people inflames the fears of minor-attracted people, mental health professionals and the public, without contributing to an understanding of minor-attracted people or the issue of child sexual abuse," reads the...

On Thursday night's "Stossel Show," which airs on the Fox Business channel, Brian Brown was unable to convince host John Stossel or his libertarian guest (and nationally syndicated columnist) David Harsanyi that civil marriage for gays and lesbians harms, or even changes, marriage between heterosexual couples. In fact, Harsanyi's suggestion that the marriage debate could be solved if the U.S. decided either to privatize all schools or all marriage contracts was treated as a more legitimate idea by Stossel and Stossel's audience.... "It is a mistake to allow government to define what marriage should be -- gay or not," Harsanyi...

The media may have pronounced Rick Perry the darling of the right wing, but Justin Raimondo has a different take. Perry's a liberal internationalist, just like the Texas governor before him: Another clueless Texas Governor surrounded by the same Praetorian Guard of conniving neocons who led us down the road to imperial overstretch and fiscal ruin last time around – isn’t that just what the GOP needs right now? The neocons have anointed their candidate, and it’s clear they have some sense he’s swimming upstream: "’He will distinguish himself from other Republicans as a hawk internationalist, embracing American exceptionalism and...

Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich is making yet another trip to the left coast over the weekend - this time to be a headline speaker at Seattle's "Hempfest," which advertises itself as "The World's Largest Protestival." Kucinich is scheduled to address the event on Saturday afternoon, right after Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. Other luminaries slated to address the three day gathering at Seattle's Myrtle Edwards Park include Wayward Bill of the United States Marijuana Party, representatives of "Moms for Marijuana" and "Gramma's for Ganja," as well as someone from High Times Magazine who goes by the name "Stinkbud." According to...

This one’s sure to have gay marriage proponents buzzing. Here Comes the Bride, a bridal store in Somers Point, New Jersey, is feeling the heat after allegedly refusing to sell a wedding dress to a lesbian. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Alix Genter visited the store with six of her closest family and friends. After the woman tried on a number of dresses, she purportedly chose the one she wanted and placed an order for it. But, when she filled out the associated form, she crossed out the word groom and wrote “partner” instead. Then, she wrote the name of...

In Kurdistan, where conservative mores still dominate despite its reputation as a haven compared to the rest of Iraq, one female MP is fighting a lonely battle: legalised prostitution. Haza Sulaiman's efforts to regulate and control the trade in northern Iraq's three Kurdish provinces have so far run into widespread opposition from rival lawmakers and religious groups, but the 44-year-old remains undeterred. We need a special law for the region -- Iraqi law is not consistent with the reality on the ground here," the women's rights activist and current chief of the Kurdish parliament's women's rights committee said. "I have...

“Teenagers and young adults who use marijuana may be messing with their heads in ways they don’t intend,” reports Harvard Health Publications. Also: Evidence is mounting that regular marijuana use increases the chance that a teenager will develop psychosis, a pattern of unusual thoughts or perceptions, such as believing the television is transmitting secret messages. It also increases the risk of developing schizophrenia, a disabling brain disorder that not only causes psychosis, but also problems concentrating and loss of emotional expression. In one recent study that followed nearly 2,000 teenagers as they became young adults, young people who smoked marijuana...

Senator Rand Paul has done an outstanding job as a freshman US Senator. He has stood his ground; he has not waivered and in every interview I have thus far seen, he has done an OUTSTANDING job articulating his remonstrance of why he could not support –any- of the bills put forward in the House or Senate. We have a few historical precedents in this nation of sons of previous Presidents succeeding their former Presidential fathers and many such examples in the House and Senate. I think that Rand Paul has clearly demonstrated... (continued)

Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope tells Michigan Messenger he has been investigating the allegations that a Lansing medical marijuana clinic, Your Healthy Choice Clinic, is offering inducements for votes — something that would violate state law. Swope says it is not completely clear what the dispensary is offering a free 1/2 gram of pot or a free medible (edible product made with marijuana) for. On the one hand, the text of the website says the offer is for registering to vote, but the second half of the website posting indicates that voters should vote for and against certain candidates for...

Listen to what Michele Bachmann has to say at the 1:08:50 mark of this video. She honestly appears to believe we could direct the secretary of the treasury to pay off all "pay off all debts of the United States, all interest, all obligations" now. (Note: I inserted the exact language and employed the italics because I noted that in the comments section various Bachmannites were claiming she called for paying off only the interest. If you can't understand plain English, this is not the blog for you.)  She then goes on to say she would balance the budget.  Huh?...

(How do you know Rick Perry’s lying? Well, you know the joke. Watch his lips move and see who he remind you of.)  They say first impressions are lasting ones. And if you’ve been following my comments on the potential 2012 Republicans presidential field, you know that my first impression of most of them is that they are either boobs or frauds.There is one contender who does not meet that definition. Texas Congressman Ron Paul is neither a boob nor a fraud. He’s the only Republican in the field who has been a consistent adherent to the constitution during his entire political...

Among the pressures facing police officiers working the streets of America is the rising number of people legally carrying concealed guns. But when one such licensee was pulled over in Canton, Ohio, an officer threatened to shoot him on the spot. Here's the chilling video. The arrest took place in early June, but the video only came to light today from a group called Ohioans for Concealed Carry. They had been working on behalf of the driver of the Pontiac Grand Prix, known so far only as William, who was arrested and charged in the stop. As the 17-minute dashcam...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is still weighing a presidential bid, said Sunday that the Republican Party should stop focusing on gay marriage and "get the heck out of people's bedrooms." Giuliani, who personally supports civil unions but not same-sex marriage, said that he was against the recent vote in New York to legalize gay marriage in the state. But while he called that decision "wrong," he described it as a "democratic vote" and urged Republicans to move on. "I think that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but I think that the Republican Party...

An Illinois man is being held at the Christian County Jail after a tractor-trailer he was driving hit a horse-drawn buggy, killing a young Amish girl and injuring three members of her family Friday night on Fort Campbell Boulevard, police said Mark Bohms, 52, is being held for murder, operating a vehicle under the influence, criminal mischief and three counts of assault, according to the Christian County Jail’ s website. A Kentucky State Police drug recognition expert evaluated Bohms, who drives for Schneider National Carrier based in Green Bay, Wis., at Jennie Stuart Medical Center and suspected Bohms of being...

With New York the latest state to allow gay marriage and others likely to follow, this issue will continue to consume public attention. Most conservatives strongly oppose such unions. I want to ask my conservative friends to take a quick logical trip: Help me—and you—understand your perspective. Your Limits on Government Let’s start with your views concerning government. Most of you believe that government should not jail consenting adults for engaging, in the privacy of their homes, in homosexual acts of which you, personally, disapprove. Most of you would not have the government bar such individuals from living together. Most...