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A senior White House official described as "maddening" Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's boasts about sending illegal narcotics to America, but he declined to say Sunday if actor Sean Penn faced potential legal liability for meeting with the fugitive drug kingpin. Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, was asked on several TV talk shows Sunday about Guzman's recapture on Friday and the surprising disclosure that Penn had interviewed him at length in October for a potential film project.

The number of criminal cases committed during new year celebrations has risen to 516-40% of which relate to sexual assault, police in the city say. The figures are a big increase from the 379 case police reported on Saturday.......

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz speaks to a crowd gathered at Kings Christian Bookstore in Boone, Iowa, on Jan. 4, 2016. Cruz kicked off a six-day, 28-county bus tour across Iowa in a push to reach out to voters before the state's first-in-the-nation caucus on Feb. 1. (Photo by Rebecca F. Miller) WAVERLY, Iowa — After logging hundreds of miles on Iowa's snow-dusted roads last week, Ted Cruz ended his massive bus tour of the state Saturday night on a lighter note with the media he so often criticizes. "I'm tempted to announce that we're going to launch another six days...

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on Sunday vowed that President Obama will close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility before his presidency ends in 11 months. "He feels an obligation to his successor to close that, and that's why we're going to do it," McDonough said on "Fox News Sunday." "Sure we are." However, McDonough declined to answer whether Obama would use his White House powers to sidestep Congress and close the facility. "The president just said he's going to present a plan to Congress and work with Congress and then we'll make some final determination," McDonough said. Obama...

Tensions ran high in the Philadelphia Police Department Sunday in the wake of an attempted assassination of an officer by a man allegedly claiming he did it "in the name of Islam" after an anonymous tip to officers on Saturday said the threat against police in the city is ongoing. According to a police report obtained by NBC10, an anonymous tipster told officers that, "the threat to police is not over" and that the man who shot Officer Jesse Hartnett is "part of a group that consists of three others," adding that alleged shooter "is not the most radical of...

Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed President Obama for running the country like a "dictator" after the president announced new executive actions on gun control last week. "Dictatorship's not leadership," Christie told "Face the Nation" moderator John Dickerson in an interview that aired Sunday. "And he's acting like a dictator and a petulant child."

On Tuesday evening, amid much splendor and spectacle, the president of the United States will be welcomed by a joint session of Congress, there to be cheered and applauded like a homecoming conqueror, and, before an audience of lawmakers, diplomats, military officers, and dignitaries, to deliver his State of the Union oration in a live nationwide broadcast.It is the most preposterous and gaudy ritual in American political life. Thomas Jefferson will be turning in his grave.Like Moses, Jefferson was burdened with a speech impediment and disliked public speaking. Unlike the Hebrew lawgiver, Jefferson wasn't compelled by Heaven to preach to...

Land covers 196.9 million square miles of the planet, which is broken up into 196 countries that are home to 7.125 billion people. With so much land available on Earth you would think people are spread out evenly throughout the world - but a stunning new map reveals that isn't the case. An entrepreneur used data from Nasa to understand where most of the world's population resides and found half of us are crammed into just one percent of the world.

And so she did. "I am Syrian, I must be handled in a friendly manner. Mrs Merkel invited me here!" -- Syrian refugee sex attacker. Amid the chaos, the crowd mocked officers - who were attacked with fireworks and bottles as they tried to get control of the violent crowd. 'Shocked and crying women and girls came to the officers to report they had been sexually assaulted by groups of men from an immigrant background. 'Identification of the perpetrators was not possible because of the size of the crowd. So we decided to disperse the crowd to prevent further...

Mexican authorities want to speak with U.S. actor Sean Penn and Latin television star Kate del Castillo, a Mexican law enforcement official told NBC News Sunday. The revelation came a day after Rolling Stone published a secret interview that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman apparently gave to Penn while on the run. The official also said that investigators were able to learn details about Guzman's whereabouts by intercepting phone conversations between Penn, Del Castillo and the drug lord.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate won't take up President Barack Obama's request for new war powers to fight the Islamic State group, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday, to avoid tying the hands of the next president. The Obama administration last February proposed a three-year authorization that would take the fight beyond national borders and expand it to any "closely related successor entity" to IS. The plan did not authorize large-scale ground operations. It has languished in Congress as Republicans and Democrats have failed to coalesce around a new authorization. McConnell's resistance to a fresh authorization for the use of...

The jihad against Christianity and Christians leaves hundreds of thousands dead, and yet Western leaders and Christian leaders in the West remain silent. Instead, they pursue the stealth Islamic ruse of "interfaith dialogue" with Muslim leaders, as their flock perishes. "ISIS Burns Christians Alive in Locked Caskets, Escaped Prisoner Reveals," By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post, January 9, 2016 (thanks to Claude): An Iraqi soldier who escaped from an Islamic State prison has described the terror group's brutal torture of Christians, many of whom died during the torture. "They tortured the [expletive] out of the Christians and some died in the...

LG unveiled a bunch of new things at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show...One of its new products is a fridge that looks like a giant smart phone. But the funny looking fridge comes with some innovative features. The first is a feature that lets you knock on the right fridge door to view contents without actually opening it up. This keeps food fresher and prevents you from grazing. The second is a smart sensor detector at the foot of the fridge that opens the door automatically when your hands are full of groceries.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that she did not ask for classified information to be sent over a non-secure system while heading the State Department, responding to the latest development in an issue that has dogged her campaign for months. Clinton has repeatedly said she did not handle classified material through her private email account while serving as secretary of state. But a new batch of correspondence released on Friday shows that she instructed an aide in 2011 to send her a memo by email after it could not be sent by secure fax....

WLKY reports that McConnell responded to Obama’s executive gun control by criticizing it, but without offering any action that the Senate plans to take to shut Obama’s efforts down. McConnell said, “If the president thought there was any legislative support for what he was doing, he would try to get the Congress to approve it, so I don’t think what he’s doing is going to have any impact on the problem at all.” And The Wall Street Journal reported that Ryan responded to the gun controls by saying he was “sure” the executive gun controls will be “challenged in the...

Mac Slavo January 10th, 2016 There have been widespread calls for Presidential front runner Donald Trump to issue an apology to Rose Hamid. You’ll recall that Hamid was the woman who silently protested a Trump campaign stop before being ejected from the event by security. But as has often been the case with political plants at Republican events, the public was only given part of the story. In reality, Rose Hamid isn’t a silent follower of the religion a peace, but rather, an ardent supporter of Jihadist activities, having gone so far as to refer to jihadi terrorism as “resistance...

In less than a month voters in Iowa will cast their ballots, officially setting the 2016 presidential election in motion. The big question: Will Americans choose a leader who will truly be ready on Day One to face the enormous global challenges that lie ahead, particularly those in the Middle East? Above all, the next president of the United States must understand that the greatest challenge facing the Western alliance in the Middle East is not simply the threat of radical Islam, but that of apocalyptic Islam. Unfortunately, most candidates and voters are still not adequately familiar with such distinctions....

....Obama appeared in the CNN-produced "Guns in America," an invitation-only "town hall".... Obama repeatedly mischaracterized... .... In response to a question from rape survivor Kimberly Corban regarding defensive gun use, [Hussein] stated, "...what is more often the case is that [victims with guns] may not have been able to protect themselves, but they end up being the victim of the weapon that they purchased themselves." Here [Hussein] is likely alluding to the widely-debunked work of Arthur L. Kellermann that popularized the notion amongst gun control supporters that a firearm in the home makes the home less safe. The methodology of...

Some registered voters in Iowa received robocalls Saturday from a white nationalist super PAC that urged them to support Donald Trump in the 2016 election. "I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America," Jared Taylor said on the robocall, paid for by the American National Super PAC. "We don't need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump." Taylor is the founder of the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance. The robocall included two more...

John_Rubino January 10, 2016 As China’s leaders figure out that pegging the yuan to the dollar while quintupling their debt in five years was a colossal mistake, they are, apparently, concluding that the only way out is a sudden, sharp currency devaluation. See Pressure on China central bank for bigger yuan depreciation. Chinese citizens, meanwhile, are anxiously awaiting tomorrow’s market open while mentally repeating the same three lines: Sure am glad I bought that gold last year. Wish I’d bought more gold last year. Wonder what I’ll have to pay for gold next week… Here’s what that looks like in...

Mark Halperin ‏@MarkHalperin 16m16 minutes ago At least 3 of top GOP '16ers are sitting on eye-catching endorsements that will be timed for release pre-Iowa for max impact. DEVELOPING...

Barack Obama held his much-ballyhooed town hall last night on guns, as a follow-up to his (tear-jerking) and totally ineffective (gun control measures) announced earlier this week. “We should politicize this,” Obama said of gun control in October. In 2008, he criticized those who “bitterly cling” to guns. And yet he supposedly wanted to rise above all that last night for an open and civil discussion about why every American should agree with him on restricting gun rights. He skillfully insisted that all he wants to do is “make progress” with “modest” proposals, not “solve every crime.” He tried hard...

Tyler Durden1-10-2016 With all eyes focused on tonight's China open (and the "oops, China matters after all" meme), the Middle-East has fallen off the front (or back) pages of mainstream media. However, the last few days have been a bloodbath (analogistically as opposed to literally) across the Middle-East with Saudi stocks plunging 2.5% overnight (down almost 13% in the last 5 days) and every market from Bahrain to UAE all tumbling below August lows. Saudi's Tadawul Stock Index has collapsed in the last few days and is now unchanged since May 2009.(snip)

It may sound crazy to some, but it's not the first time James Twyman has gone to a war torn area to sing and pray for peace. While it might be dangerous, James feels he has to do it. Twyman sings the Muslim prayer. It's just one of many prayers he puts to music from various religions when he sings for peace around the world. In the late 90's, Twyman performed in Baghdad amid fallout from Dessert Storm and he played in Syria a couple years ago. On Jan. 20, Twyman will travel to the Israeli-Syrian border to hold a...

Salim Sweidan, a Palestinian journalist who works for the Ma’an news agency, was arrested by Palestinian Authority security forces on Sunday after he reported that the PA provided Israel information which led to the arrest of the gunmen suspected of killing Eitam and Na’ama Henkin on a West Bank roadway last October. The Shin Bet said that a Hamas terrorist cell from Nablus was behind the October 1 murder of Eitam and Naama Henkin as they drove near Itamar with their four children. Sweidan reported on Ma’an’s television network that PA officials were involved in the arrest of the Hamas...

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, which received Royal Assent in March 2014, will assign a "named person" to every child in Scotland up to the age of 18 (and even beyond should the child remain in school after 18). The only exception applies to children of persons in the armed forces. The named person, for example a midwife, health worker or school teacher, will have the power to receive and share information about the child in a number of circumstances. The legislation as presently framed does not provide a parent with any say in who the named...

A Muslim Crown Court judge has been granted permission to sit on a 'Sharia court' to rule on disputes such as marriage breakdowns in accordance with Islamic principals. Campaigners have claimed the tribunal, which is based in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, is discriminatory towards women and often rules unfairly in favour of men. According to the tribunal's website, it specialises in Islamic divorce, inheritance law and Islamic wills, family meditation and mosque dispute resolution.

So he's wielding his knife on her most sensitive pressure point: her hypocrisy in running as a feminist icon when she was part of political operations that smeared women who told the truth about Bill's transgressions. Hillary told friends that Monica was a "troubled young person" getting ministered to by Bill and a "narcissistic loony toon." Hillary's henchman Sidney Blumenthal spread around the story that Monica was a stalker and Charlie Rangel publicly slandered the intern as a fantasist who wasn't playing with "a full deck." Trump may be a politically incorrect Frank Sinatra ring-a-ding type with cascading marriages to...

According to this ad, Hillary is the only one who can save ISIS from Republicans.

Trump ad - 30 seconds long Summary Picture of Obama then caption - Politicians won't call it what it is, which is 'Islamic Terrorism' Then the ad says that Trump will temporarily block Muslims from entering into the U.S. until we can figure out what is going on. Then the ad says Trump will stop illegal immigration by building a wall and he will make Mexico pay for the wall.

Former Arizona congresswoman and gun control advocate Gabby Giffords (D) will endorse Hillary Clinton for president this week, a spokeswoman confirmed to The Huffington Post. Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, will also back Clinton. The endorsement is a personal one, however, separate from the couple's political action committee, Americans for Responsible Solutions, which is dedicated to curbing gun violence. The endorsement was first reported by CBS News. Friday marked five years since a gunman shot Giffords in the head and killed six others at a constituent meeting outside a supermarket in Tucson. After an impressive recovery, Giffords and her husband...

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His works. Psalm 145: 8-9

"Opinions and ideologies make a pretty thin shield against the bullets of a madman. Your liberal self-righteousness and ignorance may have made you feel superior and comfortable, but during that 40-minute train ride to Boston, my gun kept you safe."

GOP Strategist Alex Castellanos: "No Takers" For My Anti-Trump Campaign; "Too Late" To Stop Trump Posted on January 10, 2016 Veteran Republican consultant Alex Castellanos tells Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd he has been unable to convince major Republican donors to fund an anti-Trump campaign ad blitz. Castellanos said there were several factors but the possibility of Cruz being elevated by Trump's demise was something the establishment did not want to risk. "No takers," Castellanos said about his anti-Trump campaign. *snip* "Is it too late," Chuck Todd asked? "It's too late," Castellanos conceded.

This is Part One of a two-part series. A new curriculum for Reform Hebrew schools in the United States, already being used by more than 10 such schools, is threatening to alienate young Jews further from Israel than they already are. Produced by Reform Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman, the new Kindergarten-12th grade course of study is entitled "Reframing Israel." Assuming that the default approach to Israel among Jews is positive and sympathetic, the title does not bode well for supporters of Israel. And in fact, the stated goal of the new curriculum is “teaching Jewish kids to think critically about the...

--SNIP-- Questions lingered as to just how much Archer had in common with other U.S. Muslims who have recently carried out acts of violence inspired by - if not coordinated with - radical Islamic groups. His trip in October 2011 to Saudi Arabia occurred during the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca required at least once of all dutiful followers of the faith. His 10-month stay in Egypt the next year overlapped with the beginnings of that country's uprising against then-President Mohammed Morsi

Back to Videos Trump: "Marco Has A Lot Of Good Points About Ted Cruz's Feelings On Amnesty" Posted on January 10, 2016 CHUCK TODD: You said Sen. Cruz was "for amnesty." Of all people, what is the evidence on him? DONALD TRUMP: Number one, he worked for Bush... he worked for him, he was heavy for amnesty. If you look at Rubio go after him, Rubio and Bush are both claiming each other were for amnesty, and Marco has a lot of good points as to Ted's feelings on amnesty.

Woo hoo!! Our 1st Quarter FReepathon is well underway!! We need your continuing support to keep FR on the air. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who enjoy and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No one trying to control us. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. We are self-funded, fiercely independent and enjoy our freedom to speak plainly in the support of...

CNN Commentator Bob Beckel tells Michael Smerconish that he is looking into a controversial letter Donald Trump sent to Princess Diana. *snip* "I'm flying to London on Wednesday and by Thursday I might know more." Video at source

Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton is not a "victim" of her husband's infidelity, but rather served as an "enabler" for his licentiousness. "She's not a victim. She was an enabler," Trump said in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday.' "She worked with him. She was - some of the women have been totally destroyed. Some of these women have been destroyed. And Hillary worked with him." "I mean, there's no - there's no feeling sorry for Hillary in this situation," he added. Trump said his accusations of adultery, sexual assault and harassment against former President Bill Clinton...

For partisan Democrats, when the word “Benghazi” comes up, the sophisticated thing to do is roll your eyes. If the name Charles Woods comes up, the normal thing to do is say, “Who?” So let’s talk about Cindy Sheehan for a moment instead. Remember her? For a while, she was the Joan of Arc of the anti-war Left. The mother of a U.S. Army specialist killed in Iraq, Sheehan held a vigil outside President George W. Bush’s ranch, demanding to meet with him so she could denounce the war to his face. The mainstream media swooned.

The first shots exploded around 9:40 p.m. On Sept. 11, 2012, a group of local fighters, AK-47s in hand, burst through the fortified front gate of a US outpost in Benghazi, Libya. One very long night later, the diplomatic compound was engulfed in flames and a covert CIA base a mile away lay in ruins, partially reduced to rubble by mortar fire. Four Americans were dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two CIA members. What happened in between is covered in “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” a new film from “Transformers” director Michael Bay in theaters Friday. The...

German police have used water cannons to disperse PEGIDA demonstrators in Cologne. The anti-immigration movement were rallying against a rash of assaults on women, blamed on migrants in the city on New Year’s Eve.

So, for all the post-2012 talk about outreach to Hispanics and gays, in the end the GOP would rather have the old, safe, depressed-turnout model than a bunch of first-time Republican voters coming in and monkeying about with their racket. The headline in Friday's local paper read: "BURLINGTON TRUMPED". That's what his fans liked. In the liberal heart of a liberal state, the supporters streaming out of the Flynn Theatre, waving genially to the social-justice doofuses across the way, couldn't recall a night like it. Not in Vermont. In New Hampshire, sure. In South Carolina. But not in Vermont. It...

In Iowa, which holds its caucuses on Feb. 1, Ted Cruz leads Donald Trump by four points among likely caucus-goers, 28 percent to 24 percent - within the poll's margin of error of plus-minus 4.6 percentage points. They're followed by Marco Rubio at 13 percent and Ben Carson at 11 percent. No other Republican candidate gets more than 5 percent of the vote. Yet among the larger universe of potential Iowa caucus-goers, Trump actually leads Cruz by two points, 26 percent to 24 percent, suggesting that a larger turnout could benefit Trump in the state. (Back in October's NBC/WSJ/Marist poll,...

Last Tuesday, Bloomberg political reporter Sahil Kapur tweeted from a Donald Trump rally in Massachusetts that an undecided New Hampshire voter said he will likely vote for the Republican businessman. The mans second choice was Vermont Democrat-Socialist Bernie Sanders. Tweeted Fox News contributor Michelle Fields the next day: “My cab driver in Iowa says he's an independent. His first choice is Trump. Second choice? Hillary.” Many registered Democrats in those regions now self identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. Trump has captivated these voters, resulting in his commanding lead in the Republican field. “In essence, Trump and the other outsiders...

...Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday he will win the presidency by “painting in bold colors, not pale pastels,” and that his passion for repealing Obamacare, establishing a flat tax and enforcing immigration law will be a contrast to the “mushy middle” that doomed GOP nominees in 1996, 2000 and 2012.“What they did didn’t work,” Mr. Cruz told CNN’s State of the Union.Mr. Cruz, Texas Republican, is leading in Iowa ahead of the Feb. 1 caucuses, even edging businessman Donald Trump by several points in recent polls despite the mogul’s big leads elsewhere and nationally.The Texan said his appeal is based on his loyalty...

For modern political Zionism, the root of the “Jewish problem” was the Jews’ minority status in exile. Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the movement’s founding prophet, envisaged that the creation of a Jewish state would result in the negation of the galut (exile). No Jew would find it necessary to live under alien rule; Jews would gradually withdraw to their homeland; anti-Semitism would wither, and those Jews who opted to stay put would be absorbed by their societies. Herzl granted that there would be a smattering of Jews who would continue to live as Jews outside the Jewish state. In contrast, cultural...

Congress's first Muslim member, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and nine other Democrats are inviting Muslim guests to Tuesday's State of the Union address to combat the anti-Muslim rhetoric of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the electorate. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she's helping to organize the effort because "leading political figures have made offensive and outrageous suggestions that we should create a national registry of all people of one particular faith and that we should prevent any person of that faith from even entering this great country."Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis.,...

PBS: Ted Cruz and His Father Are 'Satanic' (Video) New York Times columnist David Brooks said Sen. Ted Cruz's "dark and satanic tones" are now being copied elsewhere in the Republican primary. Appearing on PBS's Newshour this weekend, Brooks said, "Cruz is somehow beginning to get some momentum from Iowa and elsewhere. And so people are either mimicking him, which Rubio is doing a little by adopting some of the dark and satanic tones that Cruz has, and so -" At which point host Betsy Woodruff quickly interjected, "What did you just say?" "If you watch a Cruz speech,...