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Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (RGR) announced today that its Board of Directors voted to declare a special dividend of $4.50 per share on the Company’s issued and outstanding shares of common stock. This cash dividend will be paid on December 21, 2012 to shareholders of record as of December 7, 2012. Chief Executive Officer Michael O. Fifer commented on the special dividend, “The decision to return this cash to our shareholders was based on an analysis that indicates we can continue to fund our high rate of organic growth, including expected increases in both working capital and capital expenditures,...

Brothel owner who employs 80 prostitutes wins election as county commissioner in Nevada... and he's a Republican Lance Gilman is a thriving businessman with dozens of employees. That those workers include a good many prostitutes didn't faze the people of a rural Nevada county who recently elected him as a Storey County commissioner by a wide margin. The Mustang Ranch brothel owner is the first such owner to win election to public office in Nevada since prostitution was legalized here in 1971, Nevada historian Guy Rocha said. And he's believed to be the first to do so in the state's...

German soldiers and missiles seem likely to be posted to Turkey’s border with Syria soon. One report suggested the government was checking the legality of such a posting, ahead of a Turkish request expected on Monday. The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Saturday that government officials were discussing whether a parliamentary mandate would be needed to send the 170 soldiers which would be needed to staff two Patriot missile units as part of a NATO mission. The Turkish government said ten days ago it wanted the air defence missiles for its border with Syria, where rockets from the civil-war-wracked country...

Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband vowed on Monday (19 November) he would not let Britain sleepwalk towards exit from the European Union as Prime Minister David Cameron prepared for tough talks in Brussels this week on a renewal of the bloc’s budget. Speaking to a conference of business leaders, the pro-EU Miliband said leaving Europe would be bad for prosperity and a betrayal of Britain’s national interests. “Increasingly we see euroskepticism on the rise among the British public—we see cabinet ministers in this government openly calling for Britain to leave,” Miliband said. “For those of us like me, who care...

The International Monetary Fund said it’s considering classifying the Australian and the Canadian dollars as reserve currencies. The two “are to be considered for inclusion” separately in the IMF’s “Currency Composition of Official Foreign-Exchange Reserves” data, the Washington-based lender said in a report published on Nov. 14. They’ve previously been included in an “other currencies” category in the COFER reports.

Far-left filmmaker Michael Moore is on board with President Barack Obama's class warfare rhetoric. The documentarian only wishes the president would back it up with extreme policy positions. Moore took to The Huffington Post today to share an open letter to President Obama. It's full of fiscally ludicrous suggestions as well as the kind of rich-bashing that's part and parcel of Moore's faux Everyman shtick. Yes, the Oscar winner is wealthier than most of the people who see his films (and has the fancy homes to prove it), but he prefers not to focus on that inconvenient fact. He's also...

Hostess Brands, the maker of the iconic Twinkies snack cakes, may find a buyer when it heads to bankruptcy court today to liquidate the 82-year-old company, the company’s CEO says. “I think we’ll find buyers,” CEO Gregory F. Rayburn told ABC News on Sunday. ”A few have surfaced already since Friday expressing interest in the brand to acquire them.” Con Agra and Flowers Foods are among the companies that have expressed interest in Hostess, but Mexican company El Grupo Bimbo may have an edge, the Christian Science Monitor reported Saturday. Grupo Bimbo, headed by Mexican billionaire Daniel Servitje Montull, is...

Oklahoma is latest to reject state-based health exchangeBy Sam Baker - 11/19/12 03:23 PM ET Add Oklahoma to the list of Republican-led states that won't implement the key feature of President Obama's healthcare law. Gov. Mary Fallin said Monday that she won't set up a state-based insurance exchange — a new portal where people who don't get insurance through their employers can shop for coverage, often with help from a federal subsidy. "It does not benefit Oklahoma taxpayers to actively support and fund a new government program that will ultimately be under the control of the federal government, that is...

Here's the most cynical thing you'll see on the Internet today. I'm tempted to call it stupid, but it's not: The charge is stupid but it’s leveled in service to a clever goal, framing Rice's prospective nomination as Secretary of State as a referendum on racism and sexism. McCain is the target for daring to suggest that she's unqualified and maybe "not very bright" for buying the White House's early line on Benghazi, which required her to feed the public ridiculous disinformation about how "substantial" our nearly nonexistent security presence in Benghazi was. If you vote no at her confirmation...

SAN FRANCISCO, November 19, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) - The pendulum of the sexual revolution may be swinging slightly back toward sanity in San Francisco, as the city is set to vote on a new law that may bar public nudity – except at the city’s gay pride march and other events covered by permit. The ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Scott Wiener who oversees the city’s homosexual Castro District, would make it illegal for any adult and most children to “expose his or her genitals, perineum, or anal region” in public. The behavior of some naturalists at the district’s public plaza pushed...

Founder and chief executive of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, apologized for posting a message on Twitter slamming the "Jewish owned press" for its anti Israel coverage of the Gaza conflict. Murdoch reportedly received angry responses to his tweet, which asked: "Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?" "Middle East ready to boil over any day. Israel position precarious. Meanwhile watch CNN and AP bias to point of embarrassment," Murdoch wrote in a second tweet in support of the Jewish state. Due to negative backlash, the media mogul tweeted an apology ...

The oh-so-enlightened, globalism-endorsing United Nations has been pushing for more powers to regulate the international weapons-trade scene for ages now, and more specifically, has been pushing for the United States to get on board with a proposed Arms Trade Treaty for months now. After the U.N. negotiations last summer, the U.S. put the issue on the back-burner --- the treaty (rightly) became the target of vociferous criticism from America's pro-gun groups, and even perceived support for such things simply won't do in an election season. But, now that the election is over, certain parties are trying to bring the treaty...

Biden: Obama wants to golf in Ireland, but I don’t want to take him Joel Gehrke Commentary Writer The Washington Examiner @Joelmentum Joel on FB Popular in PoliticsTraveling abroad, President Obama dons a traditional Indonesian Batik shirt Petraeus chose 'Jackie Kennedy' package for wedding Obama in Burma: ‘I cannot just impose my will on Congress, even though sometimes I wish I could’ TSA issues holiday warning to ‘Opt Out and Film’ privacy rights activists Jeb, Christie on top for 2016 President Obama wants to go on a golf trip to Ireland, but Vice President Joe Biden doesn’t want to take...

The latest Gaza war is only a few days old, but already one conclusion can be drawn: missile defense works. This is only the latest vindication for the vision of Ronald Reagan who is emerging as a consensus pick for one of the all-time great U.S. presidents. For it was Ronald Reagan who made missile defense a major priority for the U.S. and our allies. His 1983 speech on the subject was widely derided as “Star Wars” because he envisioned that some missile would be intercepted in space. For years critics claimed that it was impossible to intercept missiles in...

You need to read the full interview to appreciate how much of a non sequitur this question was. He's going back and forth with the author, Michael Hainey, about the standard post-election fare --- Obama, 2016, his biography --- and then, out of nowhere, "How old do you think the Earth is?" It's not organically part of the conversation but suddenly there it is, and Hainey doesn't follow up on it. It has a distinct check-the-box feel to it, as if either he himself or his editors wanted to make sure that the question was asked but weren't particularly interested...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

The IDF Sunday night bombed a Gaza City soccer field that camouflaged a Hamas underground missile launching site it used to attack Tel Aviv last Friday. Use of the soccer field to attack Israel explains several Hamas claims in the past that Israel has attacked children playing soccer. Covering an underground missile site with a soccer field is part of Hamas's strategy to use civilian sites for terrorist activities. The strategy has been effective in causing deaths to civilians who live in homes that are used to house terrorists or serve as weapons depots. Hamas has claimed that dozens of...

London - A retired Church of England priest has been jailed for four years after admitting that he sexually abused three boys between 1983 and 1991. The case against 75-year-old Rev. Ronald Johns revealed that the bishop of Carlisle had responded to another boy's complaint in 1993 by moving the priest but taking no further action.

As Barack Obama appeared in the home of Myanmar pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, the U.S. president planted a platonic, but very affectionate, kiss on her cheek (to which she appeared to slightly recoil in embarrassment). This act has surprisingly elicited little or no comment in the global press thus far – quite unusual since public displays of affection represent a grave breach of custom in virtually all Asian countries. Obama likely did not mean to offend his Burmese hosts, however, as a well-travelled man of the world, he must have known that a kiss – especially...

Two leading EU countries have urged Israel not to launch ground operations in Gaza. Speaking ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday (19 November), the UK’s Wiliam Hague told Sky News on Sunday that “a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation.” France’s Laurent Fabius while on a visit to Tel Aviv also on Sunday told press: “War is not an option. It’s never the solution.” The EU in a joint statement last week blamed Hamas, the militant group which controls Gaza, for...

-snip- But President Obama's remarks to an audience of around 1,500 people were greeted politely rather than with rapturous applause. His frequent extolling of the United States as a model for Burma to follow was not appreciated by all the audience. "I didn't like the speech too much. Our country has changed a lot since the start of the reforms. He doesn't seem to think that. He wants us to follow the example of the US, but we need to find our own way," said Phyo Si Thar, a 22-year-old student from Burma's Maritime University.

Forget about that dead parrot of a question – should we join the eurozone? The eurozone has officially joined us in a newly emerging international organisation: we are all now members of the Permanent No-growth Club. And the United States has just re-elected a president who seems determined to sign up too. No government in what used to be called “the free world” seems prepared to take the steps that can stop this inexorable decline. They are all busily telling their electorates that austerity is for other people (France), or that the piddling attempts they have made at it will...

David Petraeus’ ex-mistress, Paula Broadwell, left a female news photographer with a bloodied forehead Monday in a confrontation outside the biographer’s North Carolina home. The 40-year-old West Point grad smacked the photographer with the driver’s side door of her Nissan Pathfinder SUV. “I had my camera and in all the chaos the door slammed and I got hit in the head with the flash,” said Nell Redmond, a freelancer for the Associated press. Redmond suffered a small cut on her forehead in the incident, witnessed by a Daily News reporter. The encounter occurred just before 2 p.m. as Broadwell, wearing...

Police are investigating an incident at a Berks County hunting club in which someone on the hunting grounds allegedly targeted a mechanical flying object rather than a living and breathing one.

Illegal immigrants in Massachusetts will become eligible for in-state tuition at public universities and community colleges, based on an interpretation of a new federal law by Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick. In June, Democratic President Barack Obama announced that the Department of Homeland Security will grant temporary relief from deportation to some illegal immigrants who immigrated as children and do not represent a public safety threat. The policy allowed the government to grant “deferred action” status to these immigrants, which means they would not be deported for two years and they would be granted work visas. The government has started accepting...

As the spotlight shines on ex-CIA Director David Petraeus' biographer-turned-mistress Paula Broadwell, journalists have uncovered a speech in which she may have revealed classified information about the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Broadwell told a Denver audience in October: "Now I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex [to the consulate] had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back."The CIA adamantly denied her the claim, which would have been a violation of laws prohibiting CIA detention....

New Ethiopian immigrants, who have no family in the country, are suffering greatly from Hamas' ongoing rocket attacks Although “only” three Israelis have been killed as a result of the ongoing Hamas terror rocket attacks against Israel, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering – perhaps none more than residents of immigrant absorption centers in southern Israel. Unlike veteran Israeli families, these new immigrants – many of them olim from Ethiopia – have no family elsewhere in the country to take them in, and hence nowhere to go. ...... Some 450 Ethiopian immigrants, most of them in the country only...

IDF planes on Monday targeted and eliminated another four senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. .... That the loss of the four to Gaza Arab terrorists was evident from the fact that Hamas denied that the IDF had eliminated the four. In a statement, Hamas said that it could not confirm that the four had been killed by the IDF, and said that they were “out of communication range.” Among the four was Abu al-Attah, a member of the Hamas senior military council. Al-Attah directed hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel, including long-range attacks. He was also a senior figure...

GAZA CITY — The top leader of Hamas dared Israel on Monday to launch a ground invasion of Gaza and dismissed diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire in the six-day-old conflict, as the Israeli military conducted a new wave of deadly airstrikes on the besieged Palestinian enclave, including a second hit on a 15-story building that houses media outlets. A volley of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel included one that hit a vacant school. Speaking at a news conference in Cairo, where the diplomatic efforts were under way, the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, suggested that the Israeli infantry...

Could Mitt Romney save Hostess? Like him or not, if you have ever shopped at a Staples and/or Sports Authority, you have Mitt Romney and his Bain Capital buddies to thank. And now that Mr. Romney is not running — well anything, maybe he can shift his energy towards an endeavor greater than saving the nation from the “looming fiscal cliff” … and rescue my favorite cakes from extinction. Sure President Obama may have saved the auto-industry, but bring back Ho Ho’s, Sno-Balls and Wonder Bread and Virginia, Minnesota & Michigan become easy wins in the next presidential election. Wanna...

Visit Godfather Politics: In September, the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike, shutting down the Windy City’s schools for 10 days. Many of those same teachers were in attendance on Nov. 10 at the Midwest Marxism Conference held at Northwestern University in Chicago. The topics of the conference were: Marxism, Crisis & Resistance The Meaning of Marxism The Flint Sit-down Strikes & The Founding of the UAW From Apartheid Schools to the New Jim Crow: Racism, USA The Democrats: A Critical History Russia: A Case Study in Workers Power & Revolution Socialists & Trade Unions Class, Race & the Civil...

Few things can make you appreciate home like staying in a hotel. This includes not only low-budget, bare bones hotels but also sweepingly large and ornate luxury hotels. What many hotels seem to have in common are needless hassles. Since most people who stay in hotels do so while traveling, and stay only a few days in a given hotel, you might think that those who run hotels would want to make it easy for someone who arrives a little tired (or a lot tired) from traveling to use the various devices they find in their hotel room. But you...

In October Paula Broadwell told an audience that the CIA in Benghazi "had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner" at its secret annex. The CIA flatly denied the claim, saying that the agency "has not had detention authority since January 2009, when Executive Order 13491 was issued. Any suggestion that the Agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless." Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute points out that the denial is factually incorrect because while Obama ordered the closure of all CIA detention facilities (i.e. “Black Sites”), the order states that it "does not...

The conservative talk show host, who had been an upbeat, if initially doubtful, Romney supporter throughout the campaign, was on a post-election downer: In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins? And say what you want, but Romney did offer a vision of traditional America. In his way, he put forth a great vision of traditional America, and it was rejected. It was rejected in favor of a guy who thinks that those who are working aren’t doing enough to help those who aren’t. And that resonated. Limbaugh echoed a Republican theme that...

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1:3

A spirited exchange between an Associated Press reporter and spokesperson Victoria Nuland marked the U.S. State Department's daily briefing Monday on the continued violence between Israel and Hamas.

Dear Speaker Boehner and Other Assorted Clueless Bozos on Capitol Hill,You've already been pwned, and it's too late to un-pwn yourself even if such a thing were possible. Which it isn't. Now it's time to try something new. Let's call it: Give them what they want.I'll repeat: Give President Obama and the Democrats the tax hikes they demand, and which most polls show the American public accepts.You'll let us avoid the fiscal cliff --- a phrase I'm going to do my best to avoid using from now on. A better phrase, if less elegant, might be, "the totally artificial...

I'm all for people pitching in to rebuild after a hurricane. But should the taxpayer be subsidizing the rebuilding, especially when an area has proven to be disaster-prone? New York Times: ******** DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. - Even in the off season, the pastel beach houses lining a skinny strip of sand here are a testament to the good life. They are also a monument to the generosity of the federal government. The western end of this Gulf Coast island has proved to be one of the most hazardous places in the country for waterfront property. Since 1979, nearly a dozen...

Campaign Spot reader Michael writes in, having examined the claim of the missing Republican voters — the drop off from McCain’s 2008 total to Romney’s 2012. Immediately after the election, many were left incredulous in response to the apparent news that Romney received 3 million fewer votes than McCain did. As more and more states have counted their absentees and reported 100 percent of precincts, the numbers are less shocking. Michael points to Dave Leip’s Atlas of US Presidential elections and calculates the drop off is now only 479,000.* Most intriguingly, many of those missing McCain voters may have voted...

Nearly 100 House Republicans on Monday called on President Obama not to nominate Susan Rice as Secretary of State. In a letter to Obama, the 97 Republicans said the credibility of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has been gravely wounded by her account of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. "Though Ambassador Rice has been our Representative to the U.N., we believe her misleading statements over the days and weeks following the attack on our embassy in Libya that led to the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans caused irreparable damage...

Here’s an idea for how to start the New Year in a bipartisan fashion: Let’s go over the fiscal cliff! Today, the only ones in Washington who advocate fiscal cliff-diving are liberal Democrats. It’s time for conservatives to join them. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire will strengthen the GOP’s hand in tax negotiations next year, and it may be the only way Republicans can force President Obama and Senate Democrats to agree to fundamental tax reform. Right now, Democrats believe they have the upper hand in the fiscal standoff. Patty Murray (Wash.) — the fourth-ranking Senate Democrat and the...

Islamic Jihad deputy chief Ziyad Nahala said on Sunday in an interview with Egyptian television that all of the organization's weapons came from Iran. “I want to note that all our weapons are from Iran. The rockets fired into Israel until now have a range of 70 to 80 kilometers," he said, according to a report on Channel 10 News.

Passing through the sometimes crowded aisles of the Washington Arms Collectors’ monthly gun show at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, there was no question that a lot of people were there doing some serious shopping in the wake of the Nov. 6 election. There was also no doubt that some people in that pavilion had voted for Obama, and were in a rather interesting quandry: how to engage in a conversation about the election while not necessarily being confrontational or combative. A couple seemed smug without daring to engage in a full debate. All of the "suspects" invariably spoke without looking us...

Through 10 a.m., Seattle had already set its daily rainfall record with 1.48" of rain, breaking the old record of 1.23" set in 1962, and the rain was still coming down. [Now 12:30 PM and still pouring!]

....The ability to put our government's finances in order for the long run is obviously part of getting back on our national game. We simply cannot afford four more years of fiscal stalemate. But how we achieve balance matters. If there is one pledge Obama made over and over, it is that he will tend to the rise of economic inequality, a drop in the living standards of many working Americans, the loss of well-paying jobs -- especially in manufacturing -- and curtailed access to higher education. Across ideological lines, Americans stuck in this downward spiral experience decline not as...

Dow Jones is reporting that a bankruptcy judge is urging mediation to save Hostess from liquidation. WSJ will have more to come as it comes out of the courtroom. Here’s an update from bankruptcy reporters Jacqueline Palank and Rachel Feintzeig A bankruptcy judge Monday asked whether he should preside over mediation between Hostess Brands Inc. and its striking union to avoid pulling the plug on the baker of Ho Hos, Twinkies and Wonder Bread.

Video of a child facing his first political disappointment. I loved the child's face when his mother tries to explain that Obama is not a bad person. He doesn't say anything, but he has the expression of "Get Real"

Public school teachers are “under attack” through so-called education reforms pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and others, the president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers said Monday. Steve Monaghan, who heads the group, said a series of events going back to the election of a Jindal-friendly state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last year and the passage of an overhaul of public schools earlier this year shows that the LFT and public education have been targeted. “We are definitely under attack,” he said. Monaghan made his comments during the second day of the group’s 48th annual convention. The gathering...

The characters in the latest example of South Florida’s dysfunctional election system — recall the Bush v. Gore debacle in 2000 — are worthy of a Carl Hiaasen potboiler. Congressman Allen West, an outspoken tea-party favorite whose district was pushed into largely new territory by redistricting, is claiming that massive voter irregularities are robbing him of his seat. Democrat Patrick Murphy, who leads West by some 2,000 votes, is trying to stop a full recount of controversial early ballots cast in St. Lucie County. His current victory margin is just large enough to avoid triggering an automatic recall of all...

MADRID (AP) — Looking for a new place to call home? Spain is hoping to give you a little bit more than a welcome basket of baked goods if you decide to move there. In an attempt to reduce the country's bloated stock of unsold homes, the government is set to offer permanent residency to any foreigner provided they buy a house or apartment worth more than €160,000 ($200,000). The plan, unveiled by Trade Ministry secretary Jaime Garcia-Legaz Monday and expected to be approved in the coming weeks, would be aimed principally at Chinese and Russian buyers. Spain has more...