Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) – An abortion fundraising group held its annual “Bowl-a-Thon” in April, raising more than $500,000 to “help women and girls pay for abortions they couldn’t otherwise afford.” The fourth annual “National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon” broke fundraising records with a total of $552,498 raised.“THANK YOU for making the Fourth Annual National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon such a success!” the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), which sponsors the event, wrote on its website. “Together, you raised over a HALF A MILLION DOLLARS for abortion access—nearly $50,000 more than the initial goal”As CNSNews.com previously reported, the group raised $466,014 from the Bowl-a-Thon...

For several weeks now, LiveAction has been publishing a series of articles revealing the secret horror taking place inside abortion clinics – the deliberate murder of infants born alive following a failed abortion. (LifeSiteNews has reprinted and cataloged this series here.) Gruesome testimonies of nurses forced to ignore infants gasping for breath, or covered in horrific wounds. Undeniable reports of doctors strangling, drowning and suffocating infants who just “won’t die”. Photos of tiny, still children, with skin the undeniable pink of a human being who had shortly before had a heartbeat. Most of these stories occurred prior to the passage...

On May 6, Russia received its first shipment of Sukhoi Su-34 twin-seat fighter-bombers (known by NATO as "Fullback"). The Su-34 is the newest generation of fighter-bombers intended to replace the outdated Soviet-era Sukhoi Su-24s. While the modernization of the Russian Air Force may — and rightfully so — raise a few eyebrows of concern, this alone is not sufficient cause for alarm. Russia’s recent air force maneuvers are, however. On the night of March 29, 2013, two Russian Tupolev Tu-22M3 bombers (known by NATO as "Backfires"), escorted by four Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighters (known by NATO as "Flankers") passed extremely...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was born in Canada but is qualified to become president should he mount a campaign in 2016 or beyond. Cruz was born in Calgary, and his father is from Cuba. But the Republican senator’s mother is from the first state of Delaware, which appears to settle the issue. Government officials didn’t exactly have to scramble for the information amid speculation the firebrand freshman senator was contemplating a presidential run and might be ineligible, considering similar questions about President Obama’s birth prompted the Congressional Research Office to compile a 2009 report to try to resolve the...

Clinton and Obama discussed Benghazi. What did they say? ‘What would you be focusing on in the Benghazi investigation?” I spent many years in the investigation biz, so it’s only natural that I’ve been asked that question a lot lately. I had the good fortune to be trained in Rudy Giuliani’s U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. Rudy famously made his mark by making law enforcement reflect what common sense knew: Enterprises take their cues from the top. Criminal enterprises are no different: The capos do not carry out the policy of the button-men — it’s the other way around. So...

What do the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal have in common? They were both about winning elections, under false pretenses. Winning elections, after all, is something Barack Obama is good at. He obviously loves campaigning and delivering grand orations to enormous adoring crowds. He loves it so much that he flew off to Las Vegas to campaign the day after the first murder of a U.S. ambassador in 33 years. What actually happened in Benghazi was out of sync with the Obama campaign line. Osama bin Laden was dead. Al-Qaida was on the run. The global war on terror...

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

SANFORD, Fla. —A Sanford couple has been met with a new wave of unwanted attention directed at George Zimmerman. One year ago, a tweet was sent out by director Spike Lee, identifying a Sanford address as Zimmerman's home. The home belongs to the McClain couple, who have no relation to Zimmerman or the case. Lee later apologized and offered an undisclosed amount of money as a settlement. Last night, the tweet resurfaced in a series of retweets, accompanied with some unsettling messages, were again aimed at the couple's home. "We're asking people to please stay away from this home. These...

Once government is ensnared in every aspect of life, a bureaucracy grows increasingly capricious. Speaking at Ohio State University earlier this month, Barack Obama urged students to pay no attention to those paranoid types who “incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity.” Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists with a straight face that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he “learned about it from the same news...

A program in Palm Beach County intended to encourage residents to report suspicious behavior is attracting resistance from around the state. Under the proposed "Violence Prevention Program," anyone who sees a potentially dangerous situation — a schizophrenic person with weapons, a war veteran making threats to passersby — could call a 24-hour hotline. Legitimate-sounding calls would trigger a visit by specially trained deputies in plain clothes or by mental health professionals. The Palm Beach County Sheriff says violence prevention unit could thwart would-be killers like the recent mass shooters in Connecticut and Colorado. The program will cost $3.2 million in...

Mayor Bloomberg is privately fuming at the data breach that has imperiled the reputation of his global media company, according to sources. “The mayor is very upset,” one source said of the scandal that has been dubbed Bloomberg Spygate. A second insider said that Bloomberg made known his feelings to company executives once Goldman Sachs complained that Bloomberg News reporters were monitoring clients’ usage of the $20,000-a-year data terminals leased from Bloomberg LP.

A Grotesque Economic Experiment Bill BonnerMay 18, 2013The newspapers and TV channels reported the Dow 15,000 story last week as though it were just a stepping stone on the way to 16,000… or 20,000… or 30,000. Heck, the sky’s the limit! Investors have reached a new level of bullishness. They’re borrowing again to buy stocks, confident that prices go in only one direction. Advisers, too, seemed sure that this was not the end of a trend, but the beginning of one. Just what you’d expect at a market top. There’s also a swift current of economic analysis telling us that...

More utter cluelessness from IRS employees, plus, as a bonus, some "Good German" excuses for why the targeting of conservative groups happened. Washington Post: As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don't necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they're engaged in partisan villainy. "We're not political,'' said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. "We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That's why...

Now that the low-information/low-knowledge segment of the country is waking up to what conservatives have been pointing out since Barack Obama was first sanctified by the left, we are being treated to the spectacle of a liberal epiphany. How, they ask themselves, could this have happened? How could they have been suckered so completely? After all, liberals/progressives tell us all the time, they are a superior manifestation of the species.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in Hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Rom 8 20-21 It looks like the messiah’s army has become war weary. After so many years of fighting this war it is difficult to continue to rally the troops and it looks like the troops are thinking, nuclear. Just like LBJ’s “heavy heart" speech it simply appears the enemy has rallied from...

President Barack Obama is calling attention to his economic proposals and efforts to expand the middle class. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says the U.S. should focus on attracting good jobs, educating workers and ensuring workers get paid a decent living.

This must be part of that new civility Democrats promised us. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has a gun firing off at the head of GOP opponent Gabriel Gomez in his latest campaign ad. Coincidence?

Tense moments in the early morning hours, as a woman carrying a gun confronts a man trying to get into her home. The attempted home invasion happened on the 1900 block of Loxley near Upton, just before 5 a.m. Thursday. It proved Betty Collins is a woman who stands her ground - with a gun in her hand. "I said, 'Get on the ground.' and he got on his knees. I said, 'no, put your face in the dirt and you're gonna stay there.'," recounted Collins. The past two mornings, she says, someone has stolen items from her car. This...

The all-night games were held in rarefied settings like a suite at the Plaza Hotel. One pink chip was worth $25,000. Masseuses were on hand to help relieve the tension, while the players were fueled by food and drink. And the stakes climbed into the stratosphere, with as much as $2 million on the table to be lost or won. * * * At roughly the same time, some of the people who helped organize the poker games were taking in breathtaking wagers on college and professional sports. One man bet $300,000 on last year’s Super Bowl — and lost....

The Moscow city government has rejected an application for a homosexual march permit for the eighth year in a row, citing the need for “respect for morality” and patriotism, according to Russian media sources. “According to Russian law, we must work clearly and consistently on maintaining morality, directed to the teaching of patriotism to the growing generation, and not toward unclear aspirations, not to mention taking the city’s central squares and streets for this,” said Aleksei Mayorov, head of Regional Security for the city of Moscow, according to Interfax If homosexual activists defy the law and attempt to march as...

The Economy Continues To Send A Ton Of Bearish Signals Comstock Partners May 18, 2013, 5:59 AMFlickr / ucumari Comstock Partners is a New York-based hedge fund It has long been our underlying thesis that the huge amount of household debt accumulated during the housing boom would inhibit consumer spending and economic growth for some time to come, and this is what has been happening over the last few years. The errors recently found in the famous Rogoff-Reinhart (RR) book do not change this view. Simply put, household debt averaged 77% of disposable personal income (DPI) over the 61-year period...

--snipp- Strange says they made his son, a SEAL Team Six Special Forces serviceman, a target. "How'd they know 10 days after killing bin Laden that it was SEAL Team Six? It was our government. Our government did that, put a tag on my son's back. They marked him," Strange said. "My son never had a chance to get married. So, I want some answers." Strange says his main goal is to convince Congress to launch an investigation.

The Obamas announced today that they will be hosting another “Performance at the White House” event on May 28 to honor American singer and songwriter Carole King: As part of their “In Performance at the White House” series, the President and First Lady will host a concert in the East Room honoring singer-songwriter Carole King, who will be awarded the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. President Obama will present the award as he did when the Library of Congress honored Stevie Wonder (2009), Sir Paul McCartney (2010), and the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal...

ORLANDO SENTINEL – Former U.S. Rep. Allen West has a new job as a Fox News contributor, the cable channel announced Thursday. West, a staunch and vocal Republican tea party favorite, will offer political commentary across various daytime and prime-time programs, said Bill Shine, executive vice president of programming for the network. “Representative West’s congressional and military experience along with his fearless approach to voicing key issues will provide a valuable point of view to the FOX News lineup,” Shine said.

Brazil's borders are so vast, and the terrain so inhospitable, that attempting to secure them has seemed a virtually impossible task. But Brazil's rapidly expanding economy has made the country a magnet for illegal immigration, and other illicit activities, and now the country has announced its own border protection program. Called the Sistema Integrado de Monitoramento de Fronteiras and known by its Portuguese acronym, SISFRON, it is intended to act as a virtual border shield along a frontier that stretches more than 10,000 miles and is shared with 10 other countries. The sheer size of the terrain that will be...

“We inquired about our status and [the agent] said she was probably going to recommend that our application not be [granted],” Dobson told TheBlaze. “She said we were political and we had criticized President Obama … and she said we did it when he was a candidate.” *snip* While Dobson said the group isn’t currently planning to take any legal action, its members are speaking out about what unfolded. “I have to be honest. It’s a very scary time for a nation right now. We’re kind of at a watershed moment,” he told TheBlaze. “We’re just trampling the Constitution. It’s...

A hotly contested gun-control law that was passed in 2007 is finally ready to be implemented, Attorney General Kamala Harris said Friday: a requirement that every new semiautomatic handgun contain "micro-stamping" technology that would allow police to trace a weapon from cartridges found at a crime scene. The law, signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, made California the first state to require micro-stamping, which engraves the gun's serial number on each cartridge. But the legislation specified that it would take effect only when the technology was available and all private patents had expired. The gun owners' group Calguns Foundation tried to...

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

The area around the World Trade Center was once the center of Arab-American life in New York City. But all that remains of sprawling "Little Syria" are three buildings: a community center, a tenement building and a church. Activists from Save Washington Street are trying to have these fading memories recognized at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.

Even in the conservative press, it has become received wisdom that President Obama was AWOL on the night of September 11, after first being informed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in the late afternoon, that the State Department facility in Benghazi was under attack. You hear it again and again: While Americans were under attack, the commander-in-chief checked out, leaving subordinates to deal with the crisis while he got his beauty sleep in preparation for a fundraising campaign trip to Vegas. That is not true . . . and the truth, as we’ve come to expect with Obama, is almost...

Bianna Golodryga opened today's Good Morning America by announcing that it was "a very busy Saturday morning." So busy, in fact, that GMA couldn't spare one second in its first half-hour for the IRS scandal. That despite yesterday's stonewalling testimony by the outgoing IRS Commissioner in which he had the colossal chutzpah to deny there had been any political motive in the targeting of conservative organizations. So what kept GMA so busy? By far the longest segment was devoted to . . . the Powerball lottery. GMA spent 325 seconds—over five minutes—on the Powerball lottery. One report from stores where...

"We try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail" ~ Dave Berry

RUSH: Let's go back to the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites, the archives. Here's Ken Rogulski, our man in Detroit at WJR, our blowtorch affiliate there. In October 2009, people were in line for money from Obama's stimulus, and Ken Rogulski went out and talked to 'em. ROGULSKI: Why are you here? WOMAN #1: To get some money. ROGULSKI: What kind of money? WOMAN #1: Obama money. ROGULSKI: Where's it coming from? WOMAN #1: Obama. ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it? WOMAN #1: I don't know, his stash. I don't know. (laughter) I don't know where he got it from,...

Anthony McDaniel of Pascagoula took home two gold and two silver medals in the 2013 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colo., this week. McDaniel won first place in both the 100- and 200-meter wheelchair races. --- snip A 2006 Gautier High School graduate, McDaniel had his legs and left hand amputated while serving in Helmand province, Afghanistan. On Aug. 31, 2010, McDaniel stepped on an improvised explosive device "that was instant amputation," he said. McDaniel, who has three children, lives in San Diego. The sergeant was medically retired on the second anniversary of his injury. Mr. McDaniel is #2

Civil servants always will have the “American people’s back” despite dysfunctional politics, former Vice President Al Gore told federal employees on Monday. “I have never lost faith in you, the career people who keep this thing going in spite of all curveballs thrown in front of you, the latest being the sequester, well, the latest is -- what’s the date today?” the head of an initiative to reform government during the Clinton administration told a standing room-only crowd of federal employees at the Excellence in Government conference, sponsored by the Government Executive Media Group, in Washington. **SNIP** “Workers know, they...

Some of the world's biggest oil companies may have a new mess on their hands. The European Commission raided the offices of Shell, BP and Norway's Statoil this week as part of an investigation into suspected attempts to manipulate global oil prices spanning more than a decade. None of the companies have been accused of wrongdoing, but the controversy has brought back memories of the Libor rate-rigging scandal that rocked the financial world last year.

The outgoing head of the IRS disputed Republicans’ suspicions that the tax-collecting agency’s targeting of conservatives was motivated by partisanship at the first congressional hearing on the scandal. **SNIP** “I do not believe that partisanship motivated the practices of the people described in the IG report,” Miller said. “I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people who were trying to be efficient in their work.” GOP lawmakers also repeatedly sought to ferret out any information as to whether Miller had talked with White House officials about the targeting of conservatives, or – more ominously...

**SNIP** A quick read of the overview on the IIIT website sounds innocent enough with wording that readily appeals to an intellectual community. “The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) is a private, non-profit, academic, cultural and educational institution, concerned with general issues of Islamic thought and education. The Institute was established in the United States of America in 1981 (1401 AH). It is independent of local politics, party orientations and ideological bias. The headquarters of the Institute are situated in Herndon, Virginia.” Seeking evidence of contributing to terrorist organizations, the FBI raided the IIIT headquarters in Herndon in 2002....

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday defended the Obama administration’s move to solicit private donations to implement ObamaCare, arguing that the government has a responsibility to help beneficiaries enroll under the law. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, has come under fire from Republicans for asking some prominent healthcare groups for financial help in executing the central elements of President Obama's healthcare reform law, which are slated to take effect within the next year. But Pelosi, who shepherded the proposal through the House, said educating the public on the intricacies of the complex law...

In an email to supporters of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi encouraged readers to sign a petition to "declare your support" for Obamacare ahead of the House plan to hold a vote on repealing the unpopular health care law. The email, which had the subject line "this has gotten out of control,"claims that the vote to repeal is "worthless," particularly because "a real repeal would actually COST money rather than save it." Read the whole email from Pelosi below:

[ . . .] Perhaps because the Obama speech to Planned Parenthood coincided with Gosnell’s homicide trial, the president did not utter the word “abortion” once. But the timing notwithstanding, that omission was hardly surprising in an address that may have set a new standard for deliberate misrepresentation of reality. For it requires willful moral blindness about reality to say that “what Planned Parenthood is about” is helping “a woman from Chicago named Courtney” make sure she could start a family, by providing “access to affordable contraceptive care to keep her healthy” in the face of a fertility-threatening disease. Today,...

X-47B Accomplishes First Ever Carrier Touch and Go aboard CVN 77 Story Number: NNS130517-15Release Date: 5/17/2013 5:11:00 PM By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Brandon Vinson, USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) Public Affairs USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, At Sea (NNS) -- The Navy's X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) has begun touch and go landing operations aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) May 17. For UCAS-D, this represents the most significant technology maturation of the program. Ship relative navigation and precision touchdown of the X-47B are critical technology elements for all future Unmanned Carrier...

There is deception in the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America. A faction in the national leadership of the BSA wants to get rid of the longstanding membership policy against “open and avowed” homosexuality. But the way it’s going about it is not worthy of the Boy Scouts. The BSA Executive Committee recently released a resolution which will be presented to the National Council for a vote on May 23. To the surprise of many, the resolution addresses only “youth membership,” leaving in place the prohibition on open homosexuality on the part of leaders. It has been widely characterized...

A group of self-styled Robin Hoods who scamper around the streets of a New Hampshire city and feed expired parking meters for strangers has been hit with a harassment lawsuit. The city of Keene says its three parking inspectors have been taunted, insulted and followed by the group — to the point that one of them says he has suffered heart palpitations and is thinking about quitting his job. In its lawsuit, the city is asking a court to order the group not to come within 50 feet of the parking inspectors. The suit names six defendants, most of them...

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican party's presidential nominee in 2012, received large applause as he was introduced on Friday's broadcast of The Tonight Show by host Jay Leno in his first appearance on the late night show since he lost to President Barack Obama in November. Leno asked Romney about the Obama administration's scandal-plagued week and gave him ample time to address the AP, IRS and Benghazi investigations. After making it clear he was done in politics, Romney was given nearly ten minutes to slam Obama's handling of Benghazi and his administration's involvement in other scandals. While discussing the...

(Reuters) - North Korea fired three short-range missiles from its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's Defense Ministry said, but the purpose of the launches was unknown. Launches by the North of short-term missiles are not uncommon, but the ministry would not speculate whether these latest launches were part of a test or training exercise. "North Korea fired short-range guided missiles twice in the morning and once in the afternoon off its east coast," an official at the South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman's office said by telephone.

Police say a man accidentally dialed 911 while he and a buddy were breaking into a car, unknowingly leading Fresno, Calif., officers right to their location. The two men, Nathan Teklemariam and Carson Rinehart​, both 20, face charges of breaking and entering, possession of stolen property and conspiracy, according to Fox News. KGPE.com explains that the 911 dispatcher could hear people speaking in the background, so he listened to see if anyone was in need of assistance. It didn't take long for the dispatcher to realize that the men weren't so much in danger as they were up to no...

Issuing misdemeanor summonses to two of the three people involved in the “brutal attack on an innocent family” at a gas station in north Baton Rouge Sunday night was an “error in judgment” by the officers who did not book the suspects into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, Provisional Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr., said Friday. “We have counseled the officers involved and I have re-emphasized to all my commanders that I expect offenders who commit misdemeanor crimes of violence will be booked into the prison, not summonsed,” Dabadie said in a statement.

The firestorm buffeting the Internal Revenue Service intensified Friday as lawmakers began what they promised would be an extensive effort to learn whether there was any political motivation or White House involvement in the agency’s recently acknowledged misdeeds. Fueling those concerns, J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s top tax watchdog, said Friday he had informed top Treasury officials starting last spring about problems related to the special attention the agency was paying some conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. Full article here ====================================================================== I would have posted this thread earlier but I was too busy doing a book report, listing all...

In short, Obama has never addressed his duty to govern. He has instead maintained a non-stop process of campaigning and fund-raising. It did not work in 2010 when voters returned power to the Republicans in the House and now he is doing everything he can to regain Democrat control there in 2014.