Free Republic

Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, nominated to be defense minister by Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani, was a commander in Lebanon overseeing Hezbollah operations during the time of the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. According to a report by Brig. Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira, a senior research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dehghan was sent to Lebanon and served as a commander of the training corps of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria and Lebanon. He joined the Revolutionary Guard after they were formed in 1979 and spent his entire military career there....

ELMA — A partisan dispute briefly eclipsed the fun at the Grays Harbor County Fair on Friday when the director of the fair had to ask Republicans to stop shooting Nerf guns at a poster poking fun at Democrats. Since Wednesday, the Grays Harbor Republicans have had a poster of a donkey up in their booth in the fairgrounds pavilion. The donkey states, “Help me try out Obamacare! I don’t know what’s covered because I haven’t read it yet.” And there’s a bull’s eye with points like a dart board on the donkey’s forehead and the donkey’s rear end. Former...

<p>Last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanded Republicans take down a "Slap Hillary" game the GOP had no part in creating. The website was put up by an independent group called The Hillary Project.</p> <p>“‘Slap Hillary' site isn’t a game, it isn’t funny. Like all violence against women, it’s sick. GOP needs to grow up and take this site down,” Pelosi tweeted.</p>

Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner has earned himself a rather undesirable distinction. According to the latest poll from Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., the disgraced former congressman-turned-New York City mayoral candidate has the highest unfavorable rating ever on record for the pollster. Eighty percent of New York state voters have an unfavorable opinion of Weiner, while only 11% saw him in a positive light. That tops the 79% unfavorable rating held by former New York governor-turned-New York City comptroller candidate Eliot Spitzer after he resigned from the governorship in 2008 over his prostitution scandal. Three-quarters of Democrats and New York City...

Twenty-six cents almost cost Sergio Branco his life. Twenty-six cents. Most of us could scrape that up from under our couch cushions or on the floor of a car. Sergio Branco has 26 cents, too. The question was whether or not he would be permitted to pay it. Branco, a 33-year-old father of three, was a truck driver for Russell Reid, a Keasbey-based waste-management company. "In his spare time, he would play with his children, liked having barbecues and people over for gatherings," his cousin Sandy Marujo said. "He is a big kid at heart." In January, Branco wasn’t himself....

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Monday the New York Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" crime-fighting tactic was unconstitutional, dealing a stinging rebuke to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who vowed to appeal the ruling. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin called it "indirect racial profiling" because it targeted racially defined groups, resulting in the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics while the city's highest officials "turned a blind eye," she said. "No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life," Scheindlin wrote in her...

A U.S. human rights group on Monday delivered a petition with more than 100,000 signatures urging that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize go to Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted on espionage charges last month for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. Norman Solomon, the co-founder of RootsAction, delivered the petition in Oslo, Norway, on Monday to the research director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Prizes. Solomon said that Manning should receive the prize for exposing government secrecy and wrongdoing in the Iraq War. He argued that the Nobel committee’s selection of Manning...

Update 4:15 p.m.: The rodeo clown has been banned from participating in the state fair again. SNIP Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), meanwhile, said: “I am amazed that in 2013, such hatred, intolerance and disrespect towards the President of the United States could take place at the Missouri State Fair. Our fair is supposed to showcase the best of Missouri, instead, it showed an ugly face of intolerance and ignorance to the world.”

Camden County voting records show Faustino Fernandez-Vina, who today was nominated to the state Supreme Court by Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, has been a registered Democrat since 1972. But if you ask Phyllis Pearl, the county’s superintendent of elections, she tells a different story. “He’s a Republican,” Pearl said in a brief telephone interview. “We’ve had some data corrupted and people’s party affiliations have been changed, and I think that’s the case here.” When asked how she, a Democrat, knew Fernandez-Vina’s party affiliation, Pearl responded, “I just do.” She said the discrepancy was never caught because Fernandez-Vina has only...

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… it’s America’s Clean-Up Hitter! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

A federal judge has tossed the race discrimination accusations that are part of a lawsuit filed against former Food Network star, Paula Deen, and her brother, Earl "Bubba" Hiers, the Associated Press reports. Lisa T. Jackson, a former manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House in Georgia, accused the pair of racism in a lawsuit filed last year. Jackson's claims caught national attention in June when Deen's court deposition was released. Deen admitted to having used the N-word in the past and made other comments that made her seem racist. A judge threw out the racism claims on Monday,...

August 12, 2013 (LifeIssues) - Let’s be honest. To truly be successful advocates for life, we can’t just spend our time “preaching to the choir.� We must step outside our comfort zone to reach those who are on the other side. This is no easy task when you’re faced with individuals who hurl obscenities, act combative or are willfully defiant. But if we’re to change hearts and minds, we must first try to understand the motives of those who are for abortion. Not all pro-abortion advocates are the same, but I believe there are five general traits that exist...

The Third American Revolution has begun. Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic is the revolutionary blueprint millions of Americans have been waiting for. Released today, Levin leads the charge for “restoring constitutional republicanism and preserving the civil society from the growing authoritarianism of a federal Leviathan.” Carefully and powerfully written, the book uses the Constitution itself to illustrate how to reform the Constitution itself. To finally turn the tables on progressives and liberals — Statists, to use the term Levin has brought back to life — who have spent the last century slowly and not so slowly...

Washington, D.C. _ Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge led a Congressional Black Caucus delegation to China last week, where she and nine colleagues discussed foreign, domestic, and economic policy with Chinese, Hong Kong, and U.S. government officials, as well as members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. Fudge and her colleagues visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong during the weeklong trip paid for by the Chinese government. While in China, Fudge and the group met with Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and other high-level officials. The trip hosted by the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs...

Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican, told constituents at a townhall over the weekend that the House of Representatives would “probably” have enough votes to impeach President Obama. Farenthold was in Luling, Texas on Saturday, and after stepping past a question about the president’s birth certificate, suggested that the House would have the votes to impeach the president, but the Democratic Senate would kill the effort. “A question I get a lot — ‘If everybody’s so unhappy with what the president’s doing, why don’t you impeach him?’” Farenthold said. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that. If we...

Willie Robertson BATON ROUGE, LA, August 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The star of the top-rated reality show on television, Duck Dynasty, may make Louisiana's pro-life voters happy, happy, happy. Willie Robertson is considering running for a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives, according to political insiders. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Rodney Alexander, a Republican who has ties to the multimillionaire duck call entrepreneurs, so he can take a post in Governor Bobby Jindal's administration. The bandana-clad Willie is known for his role as the down-to-earth one on the highest rated program in A&E's network history. Willie...

President Barack Obama is taking his economic message on the road next week with a bus tour in New York and Pennsylvania. The announcement of the bus tour was made as Obama and the first family takes an eight-day vacation on Martha's Vineyard, a resort island off the coast of Massachusetts. Specific stops for the bus tour in New York and Pennsylvania were not announced.

My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips. Psalm 89:34

The United States ran a budget deficit in July, although government revenues increased from a year earlier due to tax hikes and a strengthening economy, a report from the Treasury showed on Monday. The U.S. government spent $98 billion more than it took in last month, with the deficit driven by spending on healthcare programs, pensions for the elderly and the military. One major reason is that Washington ratcheted austerity efforts by raising tax rates, which has helped tax receipts. It has also slashed the federal budget, although in July total spending rose to $298 billion from $254 billion in...

Hospitals across the nation are being swept up in the biggest wave of mergers since the 1990s, a development that is creating giant hospital systems that could one day dominate American health care and drive up costs. The consolidations are being driven by a confluence of powerful forces, not least of which is President Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. That law, many experts say, is transforming the economics of health care and pushing a growing number of hospitals into the arms of suitors. The changes are unfolding with remarkable speed. Two big for-profit hospital chains, Community...

On Feb. 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida there was a shooting that would, for whatever reason, transfix this country and pressure how we as a nation understand our natural right to self-defense. I am of course referring to the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. It’s not my intention here to pour over the details of this case — I’m sure we have all heard those, time and time again. I personally have no desire to hear them again. Rather, I want to look at what we can learn, as a community of gun owners and concealed carry holders,...

As a precondition for "peace" talks with the Palestinians that will produce nothing, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry demanded that Israel's government release over 100 long-term convicted terrorists and murderers, many imprisoned for vicious crimes committed long before either intifada. The "Elder of Ziyon" blog has compiled a list of those to be released--and their victims. Here is a sample: Atiyeh Salem Musa: killed Isaac (Aizek) Rotenberg, 67, Holocaust survivor, 1994 Isaac Rotenberg was born to Natan and Miriam Rotenberg in Poland on 15 March 1927. A selektzia was held in his city following the outbreak...

On August 12, Joe DiGenova, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, told Washington D.C.'s WMAL that one of the reasons people have remained tight-lipped about Benghazi is because 400 U.S. missiles were "diverted to Libya" and ended up being stolen and falling into "the hands of some very ugly people." DiGenova represents Benghazi whistleblower Mark Thompson. He told WMAL that he "does not know whether [the missiles] were at the annex, but it is clear the annex was somehow involved in the distribution of those missiles." He claimed his information "comes from a former intelligence official who stayed in...

<p>The judge who ruled that New York’s “stop-and-frisk” practice violated the Constitutional rights of the city’s citizens seemed to have had Trayvon Martin on her mind.</p> <p>Judge Shira Scheindlin references his death three times in her ruling in which she found the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy amounted to racial profiling. Scheindlin refers to Martin as “a black teenager” in the body of the opinion, but then cites his name in the footnotes as she quotes directly from three sources, including President Obama’s remarks following the verdict. She references Martin as a touchstone for the pain and frustration experienced by black men facing constant suspicion by the authorities.</p>

<p>Former Florida Rep. Allen West had some harsh words for nationally known civil rights activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who have remained silent on a video showing black teens beating a white boy on a school bus.</p>

The most popular Confederate flag, besides the Battle flag--the soldier's flag, was probably the Bonnie Blue flag that a song was made about.

We encounter an incredible diversity of cultures, lifestyles, and faiths. Unfortunately our conflicting identities and beliefs often exclude others. Is there truth to real acceptance and inclusion? Join in discussion with renowned international speaker and Christian philosopher Ravi Zacharias. Extended Q&A following the dialogue with Dr. Zacharias and Michael Ramsden, speaker and Director at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) on Monday signed into law one of the nation’s most wide-ranging Voter ID laws. The move is likely to touch off a major court battle over voting rights, and the Justice Department is weighing a challenge to the new law. The measure requires voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls and shortens the early voting period from 17 to 10 days. It will also end pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-old voters who will be 18 on Election Day and eliminates same-day voter registration. Democrats and minority groups have been fighting against the...

<p>"New York to Beijing, China, in about 2 hours," said Daryl Oster, founder of ET3. "That's 8,000 miles, or 4,000 miles per hour. L.A. to New York would be in 45 minutes, with a likely speed of 2,000 mph."</p> <p>But because Musk has an established track record of developing and turning ideas that sound extreme into thriving real-world products and companies, his Hyperloop idea is not being dismissed.</p>

The mystery priest who recently showed up at a crash site, anointed a victim and then vanished has been identified. A press release provided to TheBlaze from the Diocese of Jefferson County reads:

This article was originally published by watchdog.org. WASHINGTON – Car and Driver magazine, which generally steers clear of politics, doesn’t like what it sees under the hood of Terry McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive.“Investors looking to score on the next Tesla Motors should start slapping themselves back to reality,” the magazine stated this week.The article lists a long line of electric-car companies that are “either dead or barely standing, fettered with poor management, little cash and exaggerated promises.”“Next up, according to our battery-powered crystal ball: GreenTech Automotive,” the magazine predicted.Representatives of GTA did not return requests for comment.McAuliffe, making his second bid...

If you’re graduating from college this year, count yourself lucky. Just 56 percent of college students complete four-year degrees within six years, according to a 2011 Harvard Graduate School of Education study. Among the 18 developed countries in the OECD, the U.S. was dead last for the percentage of students who completed college once they started it ― even behind Slovakia. College dropouts tend to be male, and give reasons such as cost, not feeling prepared, and not being able to juggle family, school and jobs, according to the Harvard study. An American Institutes for Research report last year estimated...

The dispute over the Falkland Islands may get a boost at the UN, thanks to Spain’s designs on Gibraltar. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais and reported in the Telegraph, Spain’s foreign minister has traveled to Argentina to discuss the possibility of both countries supporting each other’s territorial ambitions at the expense of the UK — and self-determination: Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo will use a trip to Buenos Aires next month to raise the possibility of forging a joint diplomatic offensive with the South American country over the disputed territories, sources told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.Spain’s foreign...

From the Monday edition of the Morning Jolt: Why the Cuccinelli vs. McAuliffe Race Matters to You, Even If You Don’t Live in Virginia First, does anyone want to argue that Ken Cuccinelli — Virginia’s attorney general, and current GOP candidate for governor — is not a conservative? Led the legal challenge to Obamacare.Defended Arizona’s immigration enforcement statute.Filed legal challenges to the EPA’s findings on greenhouse gases’ being a threat to human health and thus an emission they have the authority to regulate.Supports right to life from conception until death, supported and pushed several pro-life bills while in the state...

An Army officer writing in a prestigious journal says the services should not overemphasize physical strength when deciding whether a woman qualifies for direct ground combat. Col. Ellen Haring, on the staff of the U.S. Army War College, says commanders need to downplay obstacle courses and judge a service member’s ability to stay calm and think quickly. The Pentagon has lifted its ban on women serving in the infantry, tanks and special operations, and the branches are examining all their physical standards in preparation for introducing women into these units in 2015. Some military analysts fear the Pentagon will discard...

The Virginia Tea Party Patriots have invited me to speak before them along with the Executive Director of the Black American Leadership Alliance(BALA) and Congressmen Peter King on the dangers of amnesty. As a member of the BALA, I have committed myself to fighting against amnesty as we were lied to in 1986, when we were told it was a one time deal! The Pro-Amnesty Forces have been using all types of misleading tactics and bald-face lies to achieve their goal of open border and amnesty for all. The Pro-Amnesty are using every underhanded tactic to get the Senate Bill...

Following in the well-worn footsteps of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns, this week the Council on Foreign Relations released a memo urging the Obama administration to disregard the will of the American people and Congress and unilaterally enact a series of gun controls. Entitled, A Strategy to Reduce Gun Trafficking and Violence in the Americas, and written by CFR Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Julia F. Sweig, the memo pins the ills of Central and South America on U.S. gun owners and urges the president to curb our rights to...

A new political dynasty might soon be joining the Kennedys, Clintons and Bushes: Duck Dynasty, that is. Some key Republican operatives are eager to woo one of the hit show's stars--Willie Robertson--to run for the seat given up by retiring Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander. Alexander, expressing frustration with divided government, is going to work in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's cabinet. He will leave at the end of September and a special election will be held to fill the open seat. He represents the 5th District, including Monroe, La., home to the group headed by Robertson, the game call and hunting...

GOP lawmaker: House has votes to impeach Obama ‘tomorrow’ By Blake Neff - 08/12/13 01:37 PM ET GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold (Texas) said House Republicans have enough votes to impeach President Obama, but warned the effort to remove him from office would be unsuccessful and could damage the country. “If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it,” Farenthold said at an Aug. 10 town-hall meeting. In a video of the event, Farenthold is shown responding to a constituent who asked if he would support an investigation...

For a little sneak preview of where our ruling class’ obsession with amnesty for illegal aliens will lead us, take a look at what’s happening on the border right now. An astonishing surge of asylum seekers has literally overwhelmed U.S. Immigration in San Diego, forcing them to rent out hotel rooms to accommodate the overflow, while some aliens were “released to cities around the U.S.,” according to Fox News: Sources say one day last week, 200 border-crossers came through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry claiming asylum while and as many as 550 overflowed inside the processing center there and...

Police Monday in Houston were trying to determine why a man shot himself to death while in his wife's hospital room just hours after the woman gave birth. Police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said the man, whose name hasn't been released, died Monday at another hospital.

Hall & Oates has never won a Grammy but the No. 1 selling duo of all time has won something else: hipster respect. Putting aside those shoulder pads for a moment, Daryl Hall and John Oates looked like hand-picked opposites: The lanky blond Hall called himself the "more flamboyant" one, while the shorter dark-haired Oates — with his distinctive 'stache — embraced his role as "worker bee." But their union came from no design, except by the music gods: The Temple University students met in an elevator, both trying to duck a gunfight that had broken out at the Adelphi...

Jurors have reached a verdict in the racketeering trial of James "Whitey" Bulger, and their decision is expected to be announced soon.

A verdict has been reached in the murder and racketeering trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced. The eight men and four women on the jury deliberated for more than 30 hours. The 32-count indictment before them accuses Bulger, 83, of the gangland shootings and strangulations of 19 men and women between 1973 and 1985, money laundering, extortion, drug distribution and illegal firearms possession. The former leader of the Winter Hill Gang faces a maximum sentence of life plus 30 years.

Two recent events — one on the east coast and one on the west coast — raise painful questions about whether we are really serious when we say that we want better education for minority children. One of these events was an announcement by Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., that it plans on August 19th to begin "an entire week of activities to celebrate the grand opening of our new $160 million state-of-the-art school building." The painful irony in all this is that the original Dunbar High School building, which opened in 1916, housed a school with a record...

In what is being described as yet another example of Palestinian Authority (PA) denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the very legitimacy of the State of Israel, the Presidential Guard of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has claimed the Western Wall as an Arab and Islamic site. Last week, a picture of the Western Wall was posted onto the PA Presidential Guard's official Facebook page with a PA flag superimposed on it, along with the words "The Al Buraq Wall - Public Relations and Information - The Presidential Guard - Palestinian youth know their rights." The Western Wall...

I was out in the desert this weekend at our second home, where, borrowing the words from an old song "nothing is heard of a discouraging word" except if someone is discussing their round of golf. While waking my dogs for their morning ride in my golf cart I got to 'thinking of what's going on in this country and all I could think of was What Happened? And when did it happen? Let me start in the middle of this discussion to try to illustrate my point. This part of my essay should be subtitled: “me and the Presidents”...

Sen. Charles Schumer suggested Monday that, instead of boycotting the 2014 Olympic Games in Russia altogether, countries should wave rainbow flags during the opening ceremonies to show support for gay rights, The Hill reported. “That’d be pretty embarrassing for Putin,” the New York Democrat said on MSNBC. “Let our athletes participate but still make a stand.”

Welcome To The Sean Hannity Show Thread! All Posters And Lurkers Are WELCOME! The Show Thread Between EL Rushbo And TGO'S Lounge. Be The First To Post And Win A Sean Hannity Show Thread High Power Blender. Listen To Sean Do Comentary, Talk To Guests And Take Calls From YOU! :)=^..^= Image by Cool Text: Logo and Button Generator - Create Your Own Logo

Acceptance of natural gas as a consumer motor fuel has a long road ahead, even if Texans soon will be able to travel it in a gas-powered version of their favorite vehicle – a Ford F-150 pickup. Concerns about a lack of refueling stations, higher up-front costs and limited availability of the vehicles themselves mean that customers will probably not be rushing to buy natural gas trucks or cars any time soon. Still, a bi-fuel option on 2014 models of the top-selling F-150 – which will let the trucks run on natural gas or gasoline – along with changes in...