Free Republic

It should be interesting, the confirmation hearings on the nomination of Charles Hagel to be the next secretary of defense of the United States. . . A lot more interesting than the hearings on John Kerry's nomination as secretary of state or John Brennan's nomination as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. There may have been a time when those nominations were supposed to be controversial, but compared to the choice of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, both look like cinches to sail through the confirmation process. . . Mr. Hagel's qualifications to head the Defense Department begin with...

...The state Senate, controlled by a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats, approved the legislative package just after 11 p.m. by a lopsided vote of 43 to 18. The Assembly, where Democrats who have been strongly supportive of gun control have an overwhelming majority, planned to vote on the measure Tuesday... ...The expanded ban on assault weapons would broaden the definition of such weapons, banning semiautomatic pistols and rifles with detachable magazines and one military-style feature, as well as semiautomatic shotguns with one military-style feature. New Yorkers who already own such guns could keep them but would be...

President Francois Hollande says more French troops are to be deployed in Mali to support the 750 in the country countering an Islamist insurgency. Mr Hollande said new air strikes overnight had "achieved their goal". One target was the town of Diabaly, which rebels entered on Monday. West African military chiefs are meeting in Mali to discuss how an alliance with the French will work. France began its intervention on Friday to halt the Islamists' advance south. Late on Monday, the UN Security Council unanimously backed the intervention. Mr Hollande, on a visit to the French regional military base known...

'Turkey's biggest football club was brought to a standstill at the weekend by two of the cutest pitch invaders ever seen. Galatasaray's friendly against German second tier side Vfr Aalen in Antalya had to be halted early in the second half when the football-loving pooches cantered onto the pitch and began playing with the stars. Aalen's Brazilian striker Cidimar - wearing the number 33 shirt - immediately started petting the two dogs, earning huge cheers from the thousands in the stadium before the dogs were successfully chased off.'

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says House Republicans are making a mistake by using the issue of increasing the borrowing limit to challenge President Barack Obama on spending issues. Gingrich tells “CBS This Morning” that’s a losing proposition. “In the end, it’s a threat they can’t sustain,” he says, because no one wants to see the country default on its debts. …

President Barack Obama plans this week to present 19 separate executive orders on gun control and will press for comprehensive legislation to expand gun-purchase background checks, lawmakers made privy to the president’s agenda said Monday, according to the New York Times. The biggest congressional fight on gun control in early 20 years—which also includes efforts to ban assault weapons and high-capacity clips—could be launched as soon as Wednesday, the Times reports. But considering the president’s expected inability to get acceptance for his plan through Congress, Obama will not shy away from using executive orders for restrictions he deems necessary, according...

(This true-crime event took place the night of Nov. 13th 1981.) A duck hunt loomed in the morning so I hit the bed early, where my wife Shirley (six-months pregnant) was reading. Elaine, her sister, was due home from the show any minute…… Suddenly all hell broke loose downstairs— door crashed in, shrieks, bumps, whacks. “Shut-up!” “Oh NO!! NO!!” “SHUT UP, I SAID!!” Geezum! Somebody broke in?! And I could hear Elaine screaming. I leaped from my bed to the gun rack, grabbed the pump shotgun and started slipping in shells. “Don’t shoot!” came Elaine’s cry from the darkness...

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wt1Zy_ASNyA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dwt1Zy_ASNyA%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded

Here's audio of then-senator Barack Obama calling a vote to raise the debt ceiling "a sad state of affairs": The one time the debt ceiling was up for a vote when Obama was in the Senate, he voted against it.

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NEW YORK -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer and the nation's largest private employer, is making a pledge to hire every recently discharged veteran who wants a job. The plan is set to be announced as part of an address delivered in New York on Tuesday at the annual retail industry convention by Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart's namesake U.S. business. ...

LINCOLN — Gov. Dave Heineman called Tuesday for a "bold and courageous" plan to eliminate the state income tax, both individual and corporate. In exchange, the governor would eliminate certain sales tax exemptions, though he deferred until later this week offering details of his proposed multi-billion dollar tax shift. Heineman, a conservative Republican, unveiled his tax reform plan during his annual state of the state speech to the Nebraska Legislature. The governor's two-year state budget plan calls for a 4.9 percent increase in spending.

Two effeminate progressive Mean Girls pull each other's Hair Plugs at the cafeteria Cool Table. (summary)

A Cape Breton teenager found guilty of second-degree murder for stabbing his girlfriend more than 100 times has been sentenced as an adult to life in prison. Melvin Skeete Jr., who was 16 years old at the time of the incident, was sentenced Monday in Nova Scotia Youth Court to life in prison with no chance of parole until Dec. 3, 2017.

While we're "vigorously" pursuing "meaningful" gun legislation that can't possibly make it through Congress if it's anything near "meaningful" enough for this president, let's also remind everyone that those flashy gun buyback programs local politicians love to tout do about as much to reduce gun violence as, well, gun control does in Chicago.USA Today covers the latest outbreak of gun buybacks, popping up across the nation in the wake of Newtown. They come with flashy local news reports, B-roll rich with antique rifles and other castoff weapons whose confiscation would have been great for preventing stagecoach hold-ups but not modern...

The push to reform entitlement programs is at the heart of debates about the future of the US budget. Many Republicans want big changes as Medicare and Medicaid, in particular, consume a larger share of federal spending. Most Democrats merely want to ensure the programs' survival. Entitlement programs include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare). How much do you know about them? [...]

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), President Obama's pick for Defense secretary, expressed regret for a past comment about the “Jewish lobby” that has threatened to derail his nomination. In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) released Monday, Hagel called the remark a "poor choice of words," and vowed that he would work to "expand the depth and breadth of U.S.-Israel cooperation" if confirmed for the Pentagon’s top post. "I regret saying it," Hagel wrote. "I used that terminology only once, in an interview. I recognize that this kind of language can be construed as anti­-Israel. I know the pro­-Israel...

Barack Obama is laying out a revolutionary agenda for his second term, and he’s calling up his heaviest artillery to enforce the transformative presidency delayed in the first. The campaign to confirm Chuck Hagel will be no campaign for the fainthearted summer soldiers who know only small-caliber combat. The emerging White House strategy is to repeat and repeat the canard that anyone who criticizes the president and his agenda is a racist, probably a Klansman and maybe even a conservative. If the canard is repeated often enough, some people will believe it, even if they’re mostly people who believe it...

McALLEN — Federal authorities arrested three men accused of holding 51 undocumented immigrants, threatening them with a handgun and a machete as well as paddling them to keep them in line. The arrests came after a Guatemalan immigrant managed to escape the house and alert authorities. On Friday afternoon, agents with U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division went to a house in the 6600 block of North Bentsen Road, where they arrested 51 undocumented immigrants and three men who, in addition to being immigrants from El Salvador, were in charge of holding them...

<p>MEXICO CITY (AP) — More than 54,000 Mexicans have signed a petition calling on the United States to take further steps to combat weapons trafficking.</p> <p>Mexico says the majority of guns used by the country's violent drug cartels are smuggled over the border from the United States.</p>

Gun control advocates, in their infinite wisdom, seem to think they have the definitive answer to this question. The answer is "less than ten." Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is seeking extensive gun control legislation to "tighten the assault weapons ban" and "ban all large-capacity gun clips." To these ends, he addressed the gun "extremists" by quipping, "It's simple -- no one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs ten bullets to kill a deer." The first time I remember being introduced to this feeble (yet somehow, incredibly persistent) argument for gun control was while watching an Eddie...

You know that old saying that there are no dumb questions? It's not true. I know. As a journalist, I've asked my share of stupid questions. Yet even in the context of my own shortcomings, I do not understand what the White House press corps is thinking during what passes for a news conference in the Obama White House. Consider Monday's news conference. The last presser of President Barack Obama's first term spanned 53 minutes. Seven reporters asked questions -- after Obama called on them as if according to script. In his fashion, Obama answered a couple. There's a law...

New effort by James O'Keefe

FrackNation is an independent documentary that recently premiered in New York City's Chelsea Clearview Cinema. The film will be shown on Mark Cuban's cable station AXS.TV on January 22 at 9 p.m. Eastern. Since accusations fly freely on both sides of the fracking issue ("the fracking war" might be a more appropriate phrase here), and billions of dollars -- literally -- are being contested around the world, the producers decided the best way to fund the film would be by using the website Kickstarter.com to aggregate small donations -- and also not take any money from energy industry executives. PRNewswire...

Journal News gun permit map used by burglars to target White Plains home? January 14, 2013 by TIMOTHY O'CONNOR and MEGHAN E. MURPHY / meghan.murphy@cablevision.com A White Plains residence pinpointed on a controversial handgun permit database was burglarized Saturday, and the burglars' target was the homeowner's gun safe. At least two burglars broke into a home on Davis Avenue at 9:30 p.m. Saturday but were unsuccessful in an attempt to open the safe, which contained legally owned weapons, according to a law enforcement source. One suspect was taken into custody, the source said. The gun owner was not home when...

If laws were enough to deter criminal behavior prisons would be empty. The latest effort to "control" guns in America is as likely to deter someone intent on breaking the law as outlawing lust would affect one's libido. What's in a heart can't be controlled by restricting what's in a hand. Following the Newtown tragedy, President Obama vowed to seek the passage of an assault weapons ban and hastily assembled an administration-wide gun control task force, an effort that amounts to little more than a political act designed to impress what Rush Limbaugh calls "low-information voters." Government must be seen...

Up to 50-80% of all guns in circulation could be covered Press reports now make it clear what Vice President Joe Biden’s gun control package will look like. Biden wants to impose: * A Feinstein-like semi-auto ban which, according to experts who have done the counting, could ban up to 50% of all long guns currently in circulation and up to 80% of all handguns. Incidentally, if you wanted to keep the AR-15 you currently have, you would have to have a 6-month FBI background check, be fingerprinted, and get a machine gun-type license. * The framework for national gun...

In the final press conference of his first term, President Obama called on House Republicans to pay the bills Congress has already racked up. He also reiterated that he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. President Obama warned congressional Republicans Monday that a failure to raise the federal debt ceiling in the next several weeks would spell “disaster” for the US and global economies. And he reiterated his position that he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. “These are bills that have already been racked up, and we need to pay them,” Mr. Obama said in the last...

Barack Obama, frustrated with continued construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, has reportedly become “inured” to the issue and has begun telling colleagues that Israel is acting against its own best interests. If accurately reported, such comments, expressed by the head of state of the country Israel considers its closest ally, may represent a new low in relations between this US administration and Jerusalem, which in recent years have suffered strains over the Palestinian and Iranian issues. According to the report by Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg published Tuesday morning, Obama last month began repeating the mantra that “Israel...

A longtime substitute teacher in Phillipsburg, NJ, has been fired after he shared a Bible verse with a student – and upon request gave the child a Bible. The Phillipsburg School Board voted Monday night to terminate the employment of Walter Tutka. He was accused of breaking two policies – distributing religious literature on school grounds and another policy that directs teachers to be neutral when discussing religious material. “It’s unfortunate the Phillipsburg School District chose the path of religious hostility and intolerance against a retired man serving his community and simply responding to a student’s intellectual curiosity,” Hiram...

With the administration’s debt ceiling deadline fast approaching, House Republican leaders are considering a four-year debt limit increase that would take the issue off the table for the rest of President Barack Obama’s presidency. The plan would, however, come at no easy price for Obama, who pledged as recently as Monday morning not to negotiate with Republicans on a debt ceiling hike. Republicans would demand major tax and entitlement changes — the latter of which has been anathema to many Democrats — and they could also ask for movement on the sequester and an expiring continuing resolution that must be...

The federal government will hit the statutory limit on its debt within the next two months, and further borrowing would require congressional action. Almost everybody recognizes that such action will need to take place, since no one has proposed a way to end all deficit spending immediately. But Republicans want to make sure that as Congress takes that action it both highlights the problem of overspending and takes steps to address it, while Democrats want to make sure that the problem receives neither attention nor remedy. To achieve its end, each party has focused on a different element of the...

A Swede who gained worldwide fame for having his love of hard rock classified as a disability says he remains addicted to heavy metal music five years after being granted social security benefits for his affliction. "I'm still very addicted," Roger Tullgren, 47, told The Local this week from his home in Hässleholm in southern Sweden. "I listen to heavy metal music 24 hours a day."

Would you like to save $20,000 this year? Of course you would. Here’s how: Plan a month-long vacation to Disneyland, and budget $20,000 for the trip. Then don’t go. Presto! You just “cut” your family budget by 20 grand. This sounds absurd—because it is. Yet that is precisely how Washington operates. A couple of weeks ago, President Obama claimed on national TV that “I cut spending by over a trillion dollars in 2011.” But as many people quickly pointed out, in fiscal 2011 federal spending rose from $3.4 trillion to $3.6 trillion. Nevertheless, the President repeated the claim on Jan....

SALT LAKE CITY - A book about a lesbian couple raising children has returned to a Utah school district's library shelves, amid a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. Officials with the ACLU of Utah say they were informed of the district's decision Monday, two months after the suit was filed.

The 92-year-old music store become the latest high street casualty of the credit crisis and called in administrators. Some 4,350 jobs are at risk if the chain closes. The blow follows the recent collapses of camera trader Jessops and electrical retailer Comet that together cost more than 8,000 jobs. Today restructuring giant Deloitte will be confirmed as administrator and will look to trade HMV’s 230 UK stores and find a buyer. But experts said that at BEST a profitable “core” of stores will remain trading. It is understood HMV has emailed all stores telling staff not to accept gift card...

Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III declared in an exclusive Newsmax TV interview that President Barack Obama could easily be impeached if he bypassed Congress and enacted gun-control legislation by executive order.

Gun control alone will not solve the complex problem of guns and extreme violence. We have an access problem. The mentally ill should never have access to guns. Eight of the nine killers in mass shootings in the United States in 2012 had a history of mental illness or suffered from untreated mental illness. Their families, friends, classmates, teachers or coworkers knew something was wrong. The mass murders (defined by the FBI as four or more murders during one incident) occurred across the country -- including one right here in Minneapolis -- and targeted schools, movie theaters, stores, religious facilities...

I was disappointed with the clear implication in your Meet The Press interview that those of us, in the GOP who defend life, protect traditional marriage and advance religious liberty are intolerant. It was obvious to anyone who watched the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, that NO! had it. There was no way the convention chairman could have heard a two-thirds vote for the YES! position. Three times the chairman asked them to vote. Three times they denied God. Denied Him Thrice! What has happened to the Democratic Party that,in the 1960's, provided such leadership for the cause...

An '11 or 12 year old' victim of a child sex ring was forced to miscarry after her attacker used an 'instrument' on her in a home abortion when she became pregnant, a court has heard. A gang of nine men face accusations of grooming and horrifically abusing vulnerable girls from the age of 11 - making their lives a 'living hell. The men, all from Oxford, allegedly plied six girls with alcohol, cocaine and heroin before repeatedly raping them. Kamar Jamil, 27, Akthtar Dogar, 32, Anjum Dogar, 30, Assad Hussain, 32, Mohammed Karrar, 38, Bassam Karrar, 26, Mohammed Hussain,...

GOLDMAN: Hide Your Kids, The Sequester Is Coming Joe WeisenthalJan. 15, 2013, 5:15 AM Goldman's Alec Phillips writes in a note that the automatic spending cuts required by the so-called "Sequester" (the spending caps imposed by the 2011 debt ceiling deal) are now a matter of "when" and not "if." He examines the sequester as part of the broader fiscal triple threat that we're seeing right now: Debt ceiling + ongoing budget resolution + sequester. While the debt ceiling has the potential to do the most damage, from a probabilistic standpoint (because the debt ceiling is unlikely to be breached)...

China's Smog Is So Bad No One Noticed A Factory Was On Fire Adam TaylorJanuary 15, 2013China's smog problem is reaching historically high levels, with air quality in parts of the country now 40 times higher than standards set by the WHO. There's also serious visibility problems — and these can have real ramifications. State news agency Xinhua reported Monday that a fire in a 1,000 square foot factory in China’s Zhejiang province went unnoticed for 3 hours as locals couldn't tell the difference between the smoke and the smog blanketing the area. By the time anyone noticed, the fire...

The Republican-led House Rules Committee late Monday approved a rule for a massive Hurricane Sandy relief package that shuts out most GOP proposals to pare back the size of the bill. The main bill provides $17 billion in relief, and an amendment made in order would add another $33.7 billion, for a total of $50.7 billion. Late last week, Republicans offered amendments that would trim the bill significantly, but few of those were made "in order" by the Rules Committee on Monday. For example, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) proposed amendments that would have slashed $22 billion from the total package,...

When President Obama’s autopen turned the fiscal cliff deal into law, Americans might have thought that the federal government had begun to walk down the road to a balanced budget. But the 157-page American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 is business-as-usual. The backroom deal, chiefly engineered by Vice President Biden, fed the special-interest well while leaving the federal budget in crisis. The final bill includes some $68 billion in favors over the next ten years. The fiscal irresponsibility continues unabated. A look at the energy provisions alone shows why. For starters, the cliff deal renewed the twenty-years-and-counting “temporary” tax credit...

Exclusive: Joseph Farah stresses absurdity of expecting police to protect you Maybe you’re one of those people who doesn’t think you’ll ever need a gun – or want one. After all, all one has to do in 21st century America is call 911 when you’re faced with danger, right? The first time I realized I needed a gun was as a young man living in a nice section of Los Angeles. It was not the kind of neighborhood in which one expected to experience a home invasion. Yet, one night, that’s what I was faced with. It started with a...

The National Park Service does not usually approve of graffiti. "It's a federal offense," said Marcus Koenen, site supervisor for Alcatraz, the former prison that is now part of a national park. However, the government has made an exception for graffiti left behind during the Indian occupation of the island - and it helped restore signs painted by hand on a landmark water tower. "PEACE AND FREEDOM WELCOME HOME OF THE FREE INDIAN LAND," the writing says in red letters 4 and 5 feet high. "We restored it because it has a social significance," Koenen said recently. "It is part...

VERNAL — When George Burnett first set up shop in Vernal, he knew he had to find away to connect with his adopted community if his custom seat cover business was going to survive. So, armed with a sandwich board emblazoned with the phrase "Honk If You (Heart) Drilling!," Burnett took to the corner of 500 East and Main Street and began his one-man crusade to boost the spirit of a community that was getting its first glimpse of another oil and gas bust. Fast-forward nearly five years and Burnett — now a local celebrity for his tireless support of...

The White House has identified 19 executive actions for President Barack Obama to move unilaterally on gun control, Vice President Joe Biden told a group of House Democrats on Monday, the administration’s first definitive statements about its response to last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Later this week, Obama will formally announce his proposals to reduce gun violence, which are expected to include renewal of the assault weapons ban, universal background checks and prohibition of high-capacity magazine clips. But Biden, who has been leading Obama’s task force on the response, spent two hours briefing a small group...

Oprah Winfrey revealed today she was surprised and mesmerized by some of Lance Armstrong's answers in the wake of her grueling two-hour interview with the shamed cyclist, in which he finally admitted using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Speaking to CBS this morning about the 'intense and emotional' interview that took place in Austin yesterday, she said: 'He did not come clean in the manner I expected, I was surprised. Myself and the whole team were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers. 'I think he answered my questions satisfactorily. He was thoughtful and serious and had prepared himself for this...

Do We Love Kids? Five years ago, on a quiet, leisurely Thursday night, my husband and I sat at the dining room table with a yellow notepad, discussing when we should start having kids. "See, here's how it works," he said, drawing a graph. "With a dog, you put in a medium amount of work, and you get a medium amount of reward. If you were to, say, purchase a lion, you'd put in a lot of work, but you'd get pretty much no reward - and you might even get eaten. Horrible deal." He paused, drawing a straight...