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On Monday, Puerto Rico missed a payment on $422 million worth of bonds. If the United States doesn’t come to the rescue, this will be only the first of many defaults to come. In all, the island has $72 billion in debt and an additional $46 billion in unfunded pension liabilities – totaling more than the country’s annual GDP. As debt mounts, potential taxpayers are fleeing: 84,000 Puerto Ricans moved to the United States just last year alone. Puerto Rico is experiencing what I call a “democracy’s death spiral.” The same thing happened in Detroit. And more recently in Greece....

In a tearful segment before a studio audience on Thursday, Glenn Beck said he believes America is a “petulant child” that God has warned repeatedly and now must punish. Beck, a fervent supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz, campaigned tirelessly for the Texas senator, who he believed to be “the next George Washington” and a man “anointed” by God and “raised for these times.”

The Food and Drug Administration this week came out with regulations that will force e-cigarette and vaping manufacturers to go through the same onerous process to qualify what they sell as "tobacco products" - despite not having one iota of tobacco involved.There's only one conclusion to draw here: the FDA doesn't care about public health."Vaping" is seen by government health nannies as yet another sinful behavior that irresponsible Americans are participating in when they could be eating kale salads instead. But that takes a fundamentally misguided point of view on the subject. What vaping really constitutes is a tobacco alternative...

Trucated title. Full title: Mitt Romney met privately with William Kristol, who is leading the effort to draft an independent candidate In spite of his insistence that he will not run, Mitt Romney is being courted this week by a leading conservative commentator to reconsider and jump into the volatile 2016 presidential race as an independent candidate. William Kristol, the longtime editor of the Weekly Standard magazine and a leading voice on the right, met privately with the 2012 nominee on Thursday afternoon to discuss the possibility of launching an independent bid, potentially with Romney as its standard-bearer. “He came...

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Two men were killed and at least 22 other people have been wounded in shootings since Friday afternoon across the city, according to Chicago police.

For the second time in his career, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore faces charges before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary and potential removal from office. Until that court hears and rules on those charges, Moore will be suspended with pay from his position atop the state's highest court. On Friday, the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission forwarded charges to the commission, accusing the chief justice of violating judicial ethics in his opposition to same-sex marriage. Despite a ruling by a federal judge in Mobile making same-sex marriage legal in Alabama last year, and in the face of a United States...

Matthew Sheffield brings up a really good point, and asks a great question. Through May 3rd, 2016: 2016: Donald Trump won 40.4% of vote, everyone else 59.6% 2012: Mitt Romney won 37.5%, everyone else 62.5% More people voted against Mitt Romney in ’12, than have voted against Donald Trump in 2016 –Data Here– So why wasn’t there a #NeverRomney movement?

Congressman Paul Ryan has a Republican primary challenger this year. His opponent, of course, has every right to challenge our congressman. It’s America; it’s what we do. We get to exercise our freedom to do just about anything in this nation. The big question is: who is Paul F. Nehlen III? This is a man who claims to have been politically engaged in the area since 2008, yet no one seems to know him: from Racine to Kenosha to Walworth to Rock counties. A First District GOP Caucus is held every spring, but there has been no sign of Nehlen....

It's early yet, but Chris Hayes has the early clubhhouse lead for "most disgusting MSM metaphor used on Donald Trump." On his MSNBC show this evening, Hayes called Trump "a hot wet rag applied to an infected wound." Imagine the outrage if a conservative described Hillary Clinton with a similar simile. Hayes was interviewing the MSM's favorite kind of Republican: Bob Inglis of South Carolina, a former congressman who's terribly worried about global warming and called those of us not so concerned "hoaxsters." Inglis said he'd never vote for Trump: surprise! View the video here.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's derision of his political opponents draws hearty boos of support at rallies. That he castigates as many Republicans as Democrats is another sign of the fractures within the GOP........

The first Mistral-class LHD Gamal Abdel Nasser (hull number L1010, the former Vladivostok initially intended for the Russian Navy), purchased by Egypt after the cancellation of the contract with Russia went out to sea for the first time with an Egyptian crew for a week of training. Egyptian Navy Mistral-class LHD Gamal Abdel Nasser sailing out of Saint-Nazaire with an Egyptian crew aboard for the first time. Picture taken on 06/05/2016. Source: www.facebook.com/EgyptMilitary 180 Egyptian Navy sailors are reported to be aboard the vessel. A second series of formation at sea is set to take place on the second half...

As Donald Trump emerged victorious in the race for the Republican presidential nomination this week, the loudest cries of anguish heard in Washington may well have come from one section of his own party—from those in its conservative movement. “Conservatives had their party hijacked from them in the 2016 primaries,” wrote Jonathan S. Tobin in Commentary, a leading platform for conservatives. He added: “The consequences for individual liberty and restraint of government power, not to mention America’s foreign-policy interests, will be incalculable.” Meanwhile, Leon H. Wolf, writing on the conservative site Redstate.com, proposed what many conservatives would consider a radical...

In a sparsely furnished, single-room flat in Togliatti, Natalia Sizova counts the hours until she sees her five-year-old son again. Six months ago she had so little food she decided he should go and live in a care centre across town. Natalia is one of 2,000 people in this city, 1,000km (620 miles) east of Moscow, who work for car-parts maker AvtoVAZagregat. Their salaries have not been paid for months. Togliatti is not alone. Hundreds of Russian companies, big and small, are withholding salaries. The explanations may differ: mismanagement, bad economy or plain criminality. But for workers the end result...

A leading Saudi cleric has publicly stated that homosexuality should not be criminally punished, during a visit to Sweden to visit Syrian refugees. “Even though homosexuality is considered a sin in all the Semitic holy books, it does not require any punishment in this world," Dr Salman al-Ouda said in an interview with the Swedish Sydsvenskan newspaper, adding that homosexuals would be punished "after death." "One of the fundamentals of Islam is man's freedom to act as he wants," he added. "But one must also take the consequences." Homosexuality has long been a controversial topic in much of the Muslim...

on Johnson’s dreams of the “Ronald and the Donald Show” are all coming true! This week’s blunder is Johnson's move to double down on his support for Donald Trump. While other Republicans seem put off by Trump's overt racism, sexism, and xenophobia, Johnson looks forward to campaigning with "The Donald." In Eau Claire this week, Johnson reaffirmed his vow to stump with Trump as Republican nominees, saying that together they'll "make this country great again." And if that wasn’t clear enough, he went out of his way to embrace Trump again today saying he would endorse the Republican party’s nominee....

More than 8 million people in Britain live in households that struggle to put enough food on the table, with over half regularly going a whole day without eating, according to estimates of hunger in the UK. One in 10 adults suffered moderate levels of food insecurity in 2014, placing the UK in the bottom half of European countries on hunger measures, below Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia and Malta.

A stunning new report showed how Pakistan's top spy agency may have secretly poisoned a CIA chief in the days and weeks after the U.S. raid that killed Usama Bin Laden in 2011. The now-retired CIA station chief in Pakistan, Mark Kelton, had come down with a mysterious illness that left him in severe pain, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Current and former U.S. officials told the newspaper they suspected poisoning after attempts to treat him outside Pakistan failed. Those officials said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, harbored grudges against diplomats, journalists and other people the country considered opponents....

A shocking new science study funded by the Alberta Ministry of Health and published in the VACCINE science journal has found that nearly 10 percent of Canadian females end up in emergency rooms (the "Emergency Department" in Canadian vernacular) following HPV vaccine injections. The study is entitled Adverse events following HPV vaccination, Alberta 2006-2014 and is also found at this source . Even more shockingly, vaccine researchers funded by the Alberta Ministry of Health declare this 10% emergency room visitation rate to be "low" and "consistent with those seen elsewhere [with vaccines]." If 100 people drink contaminated water and 10...

Londonistan to get first Muslim mayor Thursday, 05 May 2016