Free Republic

The resolution to the fiscal cliff crisis was fittingly perverse, containing the very prodigal spending and denial of looming deficits that caused it. Washington never fails to use a crisis to compound the underlying elements of the crisis. This is what passes for bipartisanship in a demagogic age. Pols calculate that the full effects of a crisis won’t be felt until they’re safely out of office. So they don’t mind making it worse while pretending to solve it. Scaring Republicans into bad policy through such hectoring is the left’s forte and Republicans simply don’t have the courage or conviction to...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Fabulous FRiday FAVORITES Tell us about your favorite New Years Tradition(s).KISSING The purpose of kissing a loved one at midnight is to bring good luck to the relationship for the next year. EATINGPork is a lucky food for New Year’s daybecause pigs root forward when they eat. Southerners believe eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day brings fortune, while others believe lentil soup is lucky. Watch The Ball Drop?Do you...

Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Somewhere in Texas, former President George W. Bush is smiling. Although some Democrats are pleased that taxes will now go up on the wealthiest Americans, the recent deal to avert the fiscal cliff entrenches, rather than dismantles, one of Bush's signature legacies -- income tax cuts. Ninety-nine percent of American households were protected from tax increases, aside from the expiration of the reduced rate for the payroll tax. In the final deal, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to preserve most of the Bush tax cuts, including exemptions on the estate tax. When Bush started...

A popular USO port in the Israeli city of Haifa was the center of a bitter dispute over U.S. funding for overseas operations in the late 1980s. Chuck Hagel, the one-time Republican Senator from Nebraska who President Barack Obama may nominate as the next secretary of defense, led the controversial charge to shutter the port during his tenure with the organization. Hagel, who served as president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990, expressed intense opposition to the USO Haifa Center during a tumultuous 1989 meeting with Jewish leaders, according to multiple sources involved in the fight...

Vice President Joe Biden “guaranteed” Mayor Thomas M. Menino — a leading national gun control advocate — that President Obama will pass sweeping firearms reforms by the end of the month, the mayor said today. “He said, ‘Tommy, I guarantee you, we’ll get it done by the end of January,’” Menino said at City Hall today. “They’re going to get it done.” The mayor, who has been recovering from a host of ailments for the past two months, said Biden called him several times while he was in the hospital, including a call after the Newtown school massacre to discuss...

On New Year's Eve, Chris Matthews got off one last sneering shot against conservatives. In a special 2012 retrospective, the Hardball anchor connected fiscal conservatism to segregation. After guest Howard Fineman insisted that Mitt Romney's aversion to tax increases during the primary doomed him in the general election, Matthews snorted, "It's today's politics! It's like, they used to say, you have to be the most segregationist guy in the south." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] He continued, "You can never be an inch away from it because somebody would always go to your right on that issue." Go to...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who reportedly will leave office at the end of this month, is already responsible for spending and borrowing more money than any of his predecessors as secretary of the Treasury. The U.S. Senate confirmed Geithner on Jan. 26, 2009. Between February 2009, the first full month of Geithner’s tenure, and the end of November 2012, the last full month for which federal spending records are available, the U.S. Treasury dispensed approximately $13.582319 trillion. …

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) said he saw three angels in the hospital when he awoke from a stroke-induced coma in an interview published Wednesday. Kirk — who had a stroke almost a year ago — is set to walk up the U.S. Capitol building’s steps Thursday without any assistance. Kirk told suburban-Chicago’s The Daily Herald the angels asked him, “You want to come with us?” “No,” Kirk responded. “I’ll hold off.” Doctors sent Kirk into a coma after he had a stroke Jan. 21, 2012 and they temporarily removed a 4-by-8 inch piece of his skull to help his brain...

CLOVIS, Calif. (KMPH) - Valley gun store owners say their shelves are becoming bare. Last month KMPH News reported gun sales are on the rise. Now, consumers are buying ammunition at a feverish pace. James Mize, works at Clovis' Valley Rod and Gun store, he says people are afraid their gun rights will be touched, with California already having some the strictest gun control laws in the nation. He believes the federal government will simply force other states to follow the Golden State. "About 10 days ago, these shelves were full, the only ones not selling right now are the...

How President Barack Obama spent the first day of his holiday vacation in Hawaii on Wednesday: — REJOINING THE FAMILY: Obama arrived in Honolulu early Wednesday morning after spending the time between Christmas and New Year's Day in Washington as Congress moved toward passing a bill to address the so-called fiscal cliff.

The White House’s Flickr account recently released a photo of President Barack Obama and his top advisers. The complete absence of women in the image is another reminder that females are underrepresented in Obama’s staff. Additionally, the president still pays his female employees significantly less than their male counterparts. ... It is unclear when Obama and the Democrats will call off the war on women

No grandfather. No possession. No registration. B-felony. Same as Rape 1 or Manslaughter 1.

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. — It seemed like a good idea at the time. After Christmas, my wife, Betsy, and I planned to head south to this lovely barrier island in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Our plan included celebrating New Year's quietly with as many of our kids, their kids and our friends as possible and then returning to Virginia. It was supposed to be the antithesis of Times Square. Like so many of the best-laid plans of mice and men, it didn't turn out quite as expected. Only six of our grandchildren made the trek south, because so many of...

John Boehner's first order of business in his second term as speaker is no more one-on-one meetings with President Obama. An aide to the speaker, who won re-election to the leadership post Thursday afternoon, confirmed to Fox News that Boehner is done with closed-door talks with the president. Boehner and Obama over the past two years have made two unsuccessful attempts at striking a "grand bargain" deficit-reduction deal. The last set of talks, in the context of crafting a bill to avert the fiscal crisis, ended with Boehner exiting the negotiations and pushing a failed "Plan B" and then being...

Suddenly, Lots Of Influential People Are Talking About The Trillion Dollar Coin Idea To Save The Economy Joe WeisenthalJan. 3, 2013, 4:42 PMThis is really thrilling. An arcane idea that started on finance blogs in the summer of 2011-- that Tim Geithner should mint a trillion dollar platinum coin to avert the debt ceiling -- is now seriously taking off. The premise of the idea is this: Although the Treasury can't just create money out of thin air to pay its bills, there is a technicality in the law that says the Treasury has special discretion to create platinum coins,...

Habayit Hayehudi (The Jewish Home) will receive at least 20 seats in the elections on January 22, MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz predicted on Thursday. Katz spoke to Arutz Sheva after a lengthy period in which he did not give any interviews to the media. Katz, who headed the National Union in the outgoing Knesset, chose to retire from politics and not be placed on the joint Jewish Home-National Union list. "We're lucky, with G-d's help, to be seeing that the work which we did for four years is taking shape, and the Jewish Home will have twenty seats in the...

WASHINGTON - Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette is plunging into the gun control debate with new legislation to ban high-capacity magazines. DeGette introduced the proposal Thursday. The Democratic Congresswoman's district includes the site of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. It is also adjacent to last year's Aurora movie theater shooting site. In both of those attacks, the shooters' rifles were modified with high-capacity magazines. Those devices allow attackers to fire dozens of bullets without pausing to reload.

Following a deadly school shooting in Newtown last month, the governor has established a commission to look at limiting and possibly preventing another tragedy from ever happening again. "It would be stupid for us not to have this conversation," said Gov. Dannel Malloy in from the State Capitol in Hartford Thursday afternoon. Malloy announced that he is setting up a Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which will be led by Hamden Mayor Scott Jackson. "This issue touches me, I have a son whose in the first grade," said Jackson. "Right now, it's the most important thing for me to do." The...

Britain's most persecuted minority have found a new advocate. An article this morning in the Guardian by feature writer Jon Henley addresses misconceptions about paedophiles, quoting one "expert" who believes that: "It is the quality of the relationship that matters". No, this is not not some sick send-up on my part. "If there's no bullying, no coercion, no abuse of power," says Tom O'Carroll, "if the child enters into the relationship voluntarily … the evidence shows there need be no harm." O'Carroll is a former chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange with a conviction for distributing indecent photographs. The Guardian...