Free Republic

BEIJING (TheBlaze/AP) — Just as it has had many firsts recently with its space program efforts, China has successfully completed another first for its naval aspirations. The country landed its first fighter jet on its first aircraft carrier, which entered service two months ago, the country’s official news agency confirmed Sunday

Being roommates with your parents after age 21 sounds like a nightmare for most, but Jessica Bruno wouldn't have it any other way. Bruno, a 40-year-old mom, wife and DIY blogger, lives with her 62-year-old parents, Connie and Fred, in their Sutton, Mass., home. Oh, and there's Bruno's husband, Tony, and their 6-year-old son, Tony Jr. Think that's a lot of people under one roof? There's more. Bruno's grandparents, Grace, 80, and Fred, 82, live in the house, too. That's seven people from four generations living together in one home. Actually, make that nine: Bruno's two stepdaughters, 12-year-old twins Alexia...

A federal judge has issued three key rulings over a four-year period that favored companies in which he owned stock, a California Watch analysis has found. Measures are in place to prevent judges from violating federal conflict-of-interest laws. But Judge Manuel Real, a 46-year veteran of the bench appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, appears to have skirted those safeguards, records and interviews show. Judges are supposed to disclose everything from their investments to their attendance at expenses-paid seminars. When a financial conflict arises, no matter how small, they are required to step aside, by federal law and the Code of...

The Republicans are old white men, red necks and racists. They're in thrall to tea-baggers, who do not understand or give a darn about minorities. If only other Republicans knew how often I had this hateful brew (hatred of white male conservatives is still socially acceptable on the left) shoved down my throat. But what's been directed at me personally is worse: I have been called a sell-out, hater of a brother (meaning Obama), and numerous choice words I can't share here (hatred of conservative black women from the left is trickier, but even more heart-felt). ...It is time to...

The office of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi has defended a decree giving him sweeping new powers, saying it is temporary and not intended to concentrate power in his hands. The decree was intended to prevent democratically elected bodies from being undermined, the statement said. Mr Mursi was committed to finding "common ground" with other parties.

Doctor Roy wrote: You guys remember when I told you that corporations are not persons and money is not free speech? And that Citizens United would come back and bite you all in the behind? And that the only way to stop the shenanigans is to take the money out of getting elected? Well just chalk all this up to your "free speech". This is what you want. So this is what you get. -Cleared of Ethics Charges, Maxine Waters Ready to Write Bank LawsDear Comrade Doctor,You have cause and effect jumbled up as most liberal ground troops do.Citizens United...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms. For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade...

The battle lines are being drawn. The fight for the GOP is on. The seemingly eternal struggle between the right and the Republican establishment has entered its newest phase. In the wake of Mitt Romney being end-run by Barack Obama, GOP get-alongs want to double-down on failure. Moderation -- the odor of it -- is in DC's air like cheap, fetid perfume. The point being: why would establishment Republicans want to move left (to the center, in their vernacular) precisely at the time when the America created by Woodrow Wilson and FDR is faltering -- groaning under its own enormous...

When it comes to attracting business to California's eastern deserts, Inyo County is none too choosy. Since the 19th century the sparsely populated county has worked to attract industries shunned by others, including gold, tungsten and salt mining. The message: Your business may be messy, but if you plan to hire our residents, the welcome mat is out. So the county grew giddy last year as it began to consider hosting a huge, clean industry. BrightSource Energy, developer of the proposed $2.7-billion Hidden Hills solar power plant 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles, promised a bounty of jobs and a...

Ugh, here we go again: Self-righteous globalism-loving environmental zealots hellbent on getting developed nations to voluntarily “contract” their relatively prosperous economies, ostensibly in order to combat climate change, while trying to dictate the type of “green” development they’d like to see happen in poorer countries.As I’ve noted before, environmentalists are hopefully sniffing the air now that President Obama has won a second term, banking on the more “flexible” Obama’s willingness to once again take up the mantle of climate change — especially in the wake of this past summer’s droughts and superstorm Sandy. From the AP: [A]s a re-elected president...

Gen. David H. Petraeus, long the most famous overachiever in the U.S. Army, is already on his way to a new career distinction: breaking the land speed record for rehabilitation from a scandal. It was only two weeks ago that Petraeus resigned from his job as director of the CIA after it became clear that his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, couldn't be kept under wraps. The dust hasn't settled yet on the chaos kicked up by the FBI's discovery of the affair, touched off by Broadwell's jealousy of another woman who liked men in uniform. Did Petraeus allow...

Let's get a few things clear. Hostess didn't fail for any of the reasons you've been fed. It didn't fail because Americans demanded more healthful food than its Twinkies and Ho-Hos snack cakes. It didn't fail because its unions wanted it to die. It failed because the people that ran it had no idea what they were doing. Every other excuse is just an attempt by the guilty to blame someone else. Take the notion that Hostess was out of step with America's healthful-food craze. You'd almost think that Hostess failed because it didn't convert its product line into one...

A federal judge Monday rejected Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.'s request to block part of the federal health care overhaul that requires the arts and craft supply company to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after and week-after birth control pills.

At the end of a recent community meeting on the state transportation system, a grandmotherly woman with a lyrical Caribbean accent strode up to the top transportation official in Massachusetts, dispensing with pleasantries. “Let me tell you something,” she told Transportation Secretary Richard A. Davey. “I am so upset with Number 28.”

BARCELONA, Spain - Voters in Spain's Catalonia region began voting Sunday in an election whose outcome is likely to test Spanish unity at a time of deep economic crisis. Opinion polls show two-thirds of voters in this region on the French border will cast ballots for parties, both rightist and leftist, that want Catalan independence from Spain. Catalan President Artur Mas will likely win re-election since his conservative Convergence and Union party is forecast to take a majority, some 62 to 64 seats, in the 135-seat regional assembly, or Parliament. Frustration over high unemployment and a deep recession have fueled...

Israeli spy satellites have spotted an Iranian ship being loaded with missiles that analysts say may be headed for Gaza, The Sunday Times reported. According to the report, the cargo may include Fajr-5 rockets, like those that were fired by Hamas toward Israel and the stockpiles of which the Israel Defense Forces depleted during the recent round of fighting across the Gaza border, in addition to Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which could be stationed in Sudan to pose a direct threat to Israel. "With a lot of effort, Iran has skillfully built a strategic arm pointing at Israel from the south,"...

Sen. Rand Paul renews fight over indefinite detention of US citizens The Hill Nov. 25, 2012 Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is bringing a new — and more aggressive — approach to a longstanding debate over the Defense authorization bill, threatening to filibuster the bill to get a vote on his amendment limiting indefinite detention. Paul’s amendment takes a new tack to curb the military’s ability to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism by affirming they have the right to a speedy trial by jury under the Sixth Amendment. His push to change the indefinite detention laws for U.S. citizens...

The following quote was attributed to an unidentified Czechoslovakian Republic leader, a country that suffered generations under the evil of Socialist / Marxist corruption. The writer clearly and succinctly described what may be a troubling reality for America. “The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is...

Morsi now wields total control over Parliament, the Judiciary, and the military to a degree Mubarak in his jail cell can only marvel at. Old CIA wisdom: He may be an SOB but he's our SOB. New post-Arab Spring CIA wisdom: He may be an SOB but at least he's not our SOB.

The dust hadn't even settled from the debacle of 2012 before we heard that the GOP would be warming up to the idea of immigration reform in an effort to make some inroads with Hispanic voters. Apparently we won't have to wait for the next Congress to be seated before we see some steps in that direction. Word has come out this weekend that House Republicans will introduce a revised version of the previously defeated STEM Jobs Act, which seeks to expand the pool of green cards available for families of well educated immigrant workers. Republican leaders made it clear...