Free Republic

The Health Service has removed the word ‘dad’ from a pregnancy handbook for fear of offending gay and lesbian parents. Officials decided to use the term ‘partner’ throughout the 200-page guide, titled Ready Steady Baby, after receiving a complaint that ‘dad’ was discriminating against same-sex couples. But the omission of the word has angered some campaigners who claim that traditional family values are being undermined. Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘This is all part of an agenda to present as natural a type of family that cannot be created by natural means. ‘The NHS should not be...

A growing number of Indian women are buying guns in order to protect themselves from untoward situations Dr Harveen Kaur carries a lightweight .22 revolver in her bag every time she leaves her house and is of the opinion that the police is unable to protect her. She thinks that the surge in attacks against women is one of the many reasons why women in India are enticed to keep weapons. It is estimated that there are around 40 million guns in India, making it the second largest country to have such a huge weapon count after United States. Most...

While discussing gay marriage with two black religious leaders on different sides of the issue, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said Jesus would not have chased a kid and cut his hair like Mitt Romney reportedly did as a youth in high school. Matthews says Jesus would have protected the kid. "I remember that Jesus always stood against the people being stoned," Matthews said to gay marriage opponent Bishop Harry Jackson of the Hope Christian Church. "He was the one who said, 'don't condemn people.' His friend was Mary Magdalene, right?" Matthews asked rhetorically. "He wasn't out there saying obey the law...

We have sent the Tea Party Express "Mobile Call Center" down to Texas for the final push before TOMORROW'S election!Sorry to interrupt your Memorial Day, but we here at the Tea Party Express want to thank you for your support of conservative Texas U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz and want to show you what we are doing to ensure that conservatives show up to the polls tomorrow to vote.  In a campaign first, we have harnessed cutting edge technology with good old fashioned Tea Party passion and present to you the Tea Party Express "Mobile Call Center":The Tea Party...

Much has been said, here at American Thinker and elsewhere, about Barack Obama's recent pair of teleprompted references to his (presumably) non-existent sons. Thomas Lifson toys with the notion that Obama might in fact have secret sons, as a way of making sense of the seeming insanity of it. Selwyn Duke suggests it might indicate brain damage from Obama's (presumably) past drug use. (Funny, isn't it, how often one is left no choice but merely to presume about the Cipher-in-Chief.) David Paulin asks whether Obama might be the victim of a teleprompting prankster/saboteur. All of these are reasonable speculations --...

Girl, 6, Is Youngest Ever in National Spelling Bee JOSEPH WHITE May 28, 2012 The youngest person ever to qualify for the National Spelling Bee was running around in a stream with a friend, hunting for rocks. Suddenly, she came charging up the bank and headed straight for her mother. "Hold on to that basalt," Lori Anne Madison said in a bossy 6-year-old's voice, "and do not drop it." "Go away," her mother, Sorina Madison, said playfully. She talks at 100 mph. In the last few weeks, she has won major awards in both swimming and math, but one accomplishment...

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was one of several speakers at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth undergraduate commencement that took place this Sunday. Frank was also one of two people that received the Chancellor's Distinguished Service Medal at the event. However, Congressman Frank made a controversial comment about Hubie Jones, a black recipient of an honorary doctorate, that elicited an audible gasp from the audience. In reference to the Trayvon Martin case, Frank said "you now got a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you." After the audience reacted, Frank said, "I think you'll feel, I hope,...

Spain Gets Demolished Joe Weisenthal May 28, 2012Awful day in Spain on both the equity and sovereign debt front. The benchmark IBEX stock index is heading to a loss of nearly 2%.(Go to the site to see the chart) Meanwhile, the 10-year yield hit nearly 6.5%. The big news in Spain concerns the bailouts of Spanish banks... PM Mariano Rajoy today announced plans for a 19 billion EUR bailout of the Spanish bank Bankia, which itself was an agglomeration of weaker banks. He insisted that no banks or regions would fail, and he died that the country's financial institutions would...

A man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after his face was half eaten by a naked man, police said. The horror began about 2 p.m. Saturday when of gunshots were heard on an off-ramp of the MacArthur Causeway. According to police sources, a roadside-assistance truck driver saw a naked man chewing on another man’s face and shouted on his loudspeaker for him to back away. A woman also saw the incident and flagged down a police officer. The officer, who has not been identified, approached and, seeing what was happening,...

Here's a great way to reduce overhead and be effective at running a national organization dedicated to infringing on the gun rights of everyday people all at the same time... Have cities hire your people for you so that tax payers cover 1/4 of your people’s salary and benefits, pay for most of their operational costs, and finance all of their other resources! It also embeds your people as leaders in city government so that you don’t have to lobby there! Sounds like another conspiracy theory from the tinfoil hat brigade... Right? Back in March, while researching the repeal of...

The Heart of a WarriorSo far away from home in distant and often desolate lands our young men fight for freedoms with blood stained hands with heavy hearts embrace brothers who die in their arms the reality of war in the action and way of so many harms the call of duty, honor and country ring loudly in their ears willingness to fight and die maturity far beyond their years Shouldering the burden of any moment they too may fall they fly the flag of freedom while standing tall at the wall the depth of purpose as warriors they must...

The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent because another 522,000 adults quit looking for work and are no longer counted. In the weakest recovery since the Great Depression more than four-fifths of the reduction in unemployment has been accomplished by a dropping adult labor force participation rate—essentially, persuading adults they don’t need a job, or the job they could find is not worth having. In the first quarter, growth slowed to 2.2 percent and was largely sustained by consumers taking on more debt, and additions to business inventory. Gains in manufacturing production have not instigated stronger improvements in employment largely...

THINK OF OUR TROOPS THIS MEMORIAL DAY Enjoying your three-day weekend? We hope so. We wish all of our supporters a happy Memorial Day, but we also want to remind everyone who we have to thank for the privilege of observing this holiday, our troops. While back home we have the privilege of getting everyone together for a family cook out or bbq, our troops are still fighting a war in Afghanistan. Our troops don't get to have a barbecue, unless they get really inventive, like this Marine who improvised a very crude grill over some rocks. And the...

PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge. These data, from an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted April 11-May 24, show that 24% of all adult men are veterans, compared with 2% of adult women. Obama and Romney are tied overall at 46% apiece among all registered voters in this sample. Men give Romney an eight-point edge, while women opt for Obama over Romney by seven points. It turns out...

WINTER HAVEN -- Twice in three years, William Cornwell has had to draw his gun to ward off strangers who broke into his home. Early Sunday, the U.S. Navy veteran and security guard at Winter Haven Hospital shot and killed Christopher Brian Deese, 40, of 119 Moss Road, Auburndale. Deese broke into Cornwell's home and challenged him to a fight after a night of heavy drinking, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office. "You wanna fight?" Deese yelled, yanking off his shirt before charging Cornwell, who shot him once in the chest, according to the sheriff's office. The men had...

The film shows a burning crucifix, gun-toting priests and the torture of a young boy. And the Roman Catholic hierarchy is loving it. The film, “For Greater Glory,” hits theaters on June 1 and tells a little known chapter of Mexican history — the Cristero War of 1926 to 1929, which pitted an army of devout Catholic rebels (led in the movie by Andy Garcia) against the government of Mexican President Plutarco Calles (played by Ruben Blades). For Catholics enraged by the Obama administration’s proposed contraception mandate, the film about the Mexican church’s fight in 1920s is a heartening and...

(CBS News) The U.S. Senate has yet to act on a so-called "concealed carry reciprocity" bill, which would let people with permits to carry a concealed weapon in their home state carry that weapon into virtually any other state. A similar bill has passed the House. Almost every state now allows the carrying of concealed weapons under certain conditions. Colorado, for example, has issued nearly 130,000 concealed handgun permits since 2003. Robert Paulson is getting his permit to carry a concealed gun and says other seniors should do the same. "Yeah, why not?" he asked. Aimee Galvin is thinking about...

When Doug Imbruce wanted to start an interactive video company in 2009, he had no luck finding investors in New York. So he moved to Silicon Valley — where venture capitalists were receptive to his pitch — and founded Qwiki. But in February, he decided that being so far away from the nation’s big media companies was stifling his start-up’s growth. So he moved back to New York, bringing the company with him. Qwiki, with 15 employees, now operates out of a SoHo loft space. “We went to Silicon Valley because they understood how big we wanted to get,” Mr....

Chestnuthill Township supervisors will consider whether a township ordinance prohibiting guns in the township park should be repealed. The ordinance may conflict with a state law that says that municipalities don't have the authority to limit the rights of gun owners as long as the owners act in accordance with state gun laws. The possible conflict of local and state laws was brought to the township's attention by Brodheadsville resident William Gray. Gray doesn't want to fear being punished if he carries a firearm into Chestnuthill Park, he said. Gray said that, among other reasons, he'd like to have a...

President Barack Obama needs an agreement with Iran to get reelected, claims a senior Iranian legislator speaking to government-controlled media. Iran is locked in talks between six world powers, including the United States, over its unsupervised nuclear program and Tehran’s demand to enrich high-grade uranium. "No international consensus will be made for any measure in the next six months and until the presidential election in the US, and at present it is the US which is in need of an agreement with Iran and attempts to lead the western sides to the same path," said Mahdi Sanayee. A member of...

A shooting near the Space Needle Saturday that apparently involved an admitted gang member from Kent will almost certainly spark a new effort by the City of Seattle, no doubt with support from Washington Ceasefire, to attack Washington State’s preemption statute. Seattle tried that in the courts and in March, that legal strategy was derailed by the state Supreme Court when it declined to review Seattle’s unanimous loss before the state Court of Appeals last fall. That was 20 months after Seattle lost at the trial court level in an effort to ban firearms from city park facilities. On the...

The presumptive GOP nominee has some Republicans worried he lacks the “vision thing” that has hurt previous presidential candidates and haunted George H.W. Bush in his quest to succeed Ronald Reagan. Some GOP officials fear that their nominee for president has so far failed to articulate a clear and compelling plan for the country if he defeats President Barack Obama in November. Instead of framing his ideas in a positive and specific way — like some of his GOP primary challengers — they say Romney must stop solely running a defensive campaign that leaves voters without a clear idea of...

The late Andrew Breitbart saw in Ted Cruz the future of the conservative movement.  On paper, Cruz seems like someone out of central casting, perfectly put together to represent conservatism’s future. His father fled oppression in Cuba for freedom in America. He grew up immersing himself in the works of Frederick Bastiat, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman, earning scholarships by giving speeches about their ideas. He went to Princeton and Harvard law without losing the common touch. He racked up legal victories that helped defend the Second Amendment and America’s sovereignty against the World Court.  But while...

PORTLAND -- Two men interrupted an armed robbery at a Metzger store and held the suspect down until police arrived Saturday night. Deputies were called just after 11:30 p.m. to the report of an armed robbery in progress at the Metzger Market, at 10055 SW Hall Boulevard, according to Sgt. David Thompson of the Washington County Sheriff's Office. The responding deputy arrived to find that the suspect, 21-year-old David L. Hager, was being held down by one of two people who had interrupted the robbery. Investigators said Hager had knocked on the door after the store was closed. When the...

About 250,000 people are in South Beach for Memorial Day weekend and the hip hop festival known as Urban Beach Week. The festival is known for its over the top parties and fashions. Seventy-nine people were arrested Saturday, bringing the total number to 228. That’s compared to 107 people arrested the same Saturday last year.

Meet the Stooges: Larry, Curly and Barack. Bill Clinton meets another member of the Blue Dress Brigade. Larry Flynt: the latest soldier in the Democrats’ war on women. And the Huffington Post declares jihad on sense. All this — plus — Obama eats dogs. Presented in 1080 hi-def, FOR FREE! It’s The Great Eight, from the Personal Liberty Digest™!

The quickest way to divide people is to have them speak different languages. America has always been a nation of immigrants, but one of the things that has always united us as a nation has been the English language. In the past, it was always understood that if you wanted to thrive in the "land of opportunity" that you had better learn English and learn it well. Unfortunately, times have changed. Today, many radical activist groups are actually referring to the English language as a "tool of oppression"... » If you like this article, please subscribe to Right Side News...

(ref: How Banks Bought the Tea Party) Seriously folks. The 15 freshmen Republican representatives in the House Tea Party Caucus each ran in 2010 on a populist anti-Wall Street message, highlighting their opposition to bank bailouts like the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and criticizing Washington for enabling the banking sector as it became “Too Big to Fail.” After winning, all fifteen received significant PAC contributions from the banking industry — and have become a reliable vote and mouthpiece for the financial industry, a ThinkProgress analysis of campaign contributions, voting records and public statements reveals. It would be nice...

MANATEE COUNTY -- A man was taken a hospital after being shot Saturday in north Manatee County during an argument. According to the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, three men got into an argument about 4 p.m. in front of a home in the 4700 block of Canal Road after drinking most of the afternoon. One of the men, Norberto Cortes, brandished a knife and stabbed Fernando Deleon twice. The third man, Jorge Deleon, produced a gun and warned Cortes to stop. Cortes continue his assault, and Jorge Deleon shot him once in the torso, the report said. Fernando Deleon refused...

The archbishop of Washington on Sunday accused the network news programs of having "missed the boat" by largely ignoring lawsuits filed this past week by Catholic institutions challenging the Obama administration's so-called contraception mandate. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," was responding to an analysis by the conservative Media Research Center of how the networks' evening newscasts treated coverage of the dozen federal lawsuits filed Monday. According to the center, CBS spent 19 seconds on the story after it broke, while the other networks gave it no coverage. "It is puzzling, particularly since they're focusing so much attention...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it was "disturbing" and "difficult to understand" Pakistan's 33-year prison sentence for a doctor who aided the United States in finding terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Shakil Afridi, a 48-year-old Pakistani doctor, was convicted last week of high treason by a Pakistani tribal court for working with the CIA by running a fake vaccination program near the al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to collect DNA samples from bin Laden's relatives to try to confirm his location.

The Obama campaign’s latest attack tells the story of workers at an Indiana office supply company who lost their jobs after a Bain-owned company named American Pad & Paper (Ampad) took over their company and drove it out of business. Here’s what the Obama Web video doesn’t mention: A top Obama donor and fundraiser had a much more direct tie to the controversy and actually served on the board of directors at Richardson, Texas-based Ampad, which makes office paper products. Jonathan Lavine is a long-time Bain Capital executive and co-owner of the Boston Celtics. He is also one of President...

The ham-handed Barack Obama campaign attack ads on Mitt Romney's former firm Bain Capital have drawn a lot of ire from other Democrats. And not just because they were sloppily fact-checked (the ads hit Romney for layoffs long after he left Bain) and because a leading Obama money bundler is a Bain executive himself. Chiming in with various degrees of disapproval were Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker ("nauseating"), former Rep. Harold Ford, Obama car czar Steven Rattner, Sen. Mark Warner and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. There are other signs of unease among Democratic elites. Obama contributions from Silicon Valley...

Poll after poll shows public support for same-sex marriage steadily increasing, to the point where it's now a majority viewpoint. Yet in all 32 states where gay marriage has been on the ballot, voters have rejected it. It's possible the streak could end in November, when Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state are likely to have closely contested gay marriage measures on their ballots.

It appears the Caucasus Emirate’s representatives finally realized that it is no longer enough to talk about “worldwide jihad” and position the war in the Caucasus as part of it. Caucasus Emirate websites normally provide information about jihadist achievements around the world – in countries and territories such as Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Kashmir and so on. However, the leadership of the North Caucasus insurgency now realizes that the region’s ordinary residents are not interested in what is going on in Yemen or Sudan: they are much more concerned with what is happening in neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan, as the latter...

Janesville teachers and their supporters expressed outrage this week after an anonymous group distributed fliers listing their salaries and urging parents to request their child be assigned to a "non-radical teacher" next year. The fliers, which included the names, titles and salaries of the 321 highest-paid Janesville teachers, also urged readers to go to iverifytherecall.com to determine if the teachers signed the petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker. Orville Seymer, an open records specialist with the conservative Milwaukee-based activist organization Citizens for Responsible Government, said the group responsible for the flier has asked to remain anonymous "for obvious reasons." On...

Any info on the button Trayvon is wearing? Appears to be black and white with 75-80% black. You can see it enlarged a bit at theconservativetreehouse.com in the top video.

The father of a U.S. soldier who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan thanked the motorcycle riders of Rolling Thunder on Sunday for raising awareness of missing-in-action troops and prisoners of war. At the annual Rolling Thunder rally on the National Mall, Bob Bergdahl promised his son: "You will come home. We will not leave you behind." Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 26, of Hailey, Idaho, was taken prisoner in Afghanistan nearly three years ago. He is the subject of a proposed prisoner swap in which the Obama administration would allow the transfer of five Taliban prisoners long held at the U.S....

Barack Obama has taken his reelection campaign to new depths with a television ad targeting veterans released last week timed for Memorial Day.Now never mind that Memorial Day is to honor those killed in service while Veterans Day is set aside to honor living service members. We know that Obama has trouble differentiating the two. ("On this Memorial Day as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes--and I see many of them in the audience here today..." Obama, May 26, 2008)The Associated Press quots Obama in the ad:"It's because of what they've done that we've been able to...

An inbound airplane’s windshield was hit with a laser beam fired from east of the runway at Myrtle Beach International Airport about 10 p.m. Sunday, but no landing problems were reported. Myrtle Beach Police Lt. Doug Furlong said the laser strike was reported, but investigations found nothing to follow up on. “I’m sure it did happen, though,” he said.

Union Statistics: What You May Not Know | LaborUnionReport.com Monday, May 28th, 2012 HomeLaborUnionReport Updates DAILY NEWSGeneral NewsProject Labor AgreementsPublic Sector UnionsUnion BossesUnion HypocrisyUnion OrganizingUnion StrikeUnion Violence Legal UpdatesNLRB Watch National Right to Work Political Updates EconomyEnvironmentalismHealth CareImmigrationMarxism/Socialism Union Corruption Union Corruption Report The Blogroll Filed Under:  LaborUnionReport Updates Union Statistics: What You May Not Know September 15th 2011   ·   1 Comment Tweet Sharebar Tweet The folks at UnionFacts.com have a ‘vital statistics‘ page that provides some good information about unions that many Americans may not know. Here is just some of the information:Financial Information Annual Dues Paid to Unions: $8,217,838,676 Total...

Rolling Thunder made it to the White House this year, but the experience for the motorcycle-riding patriots was more pro forma photo oppportunity than heartfelt meeting with President Obama, the group says. “Well, we had a good meeting with his staff and a defense official. But we were supposed to have time with the president,” founder and executive national director Artie Muller told The Washington Times in an interview after the meeting Friday. “When we were there in the past, the president himself talked to us about the issues that concern us - veterans health care, the fate of prisoners...

Research suggests that irises do not remain the same for life after all. Identifying people by scanning the irises of their eyes may not be as reliable as some governments and the public might think. That’s according to new research suggesting that irises, rather than being stable over a lifetime, are susceptible to ageing effects that steadily change their appearance over time. With iris recognition now being used at border control in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, this has huge implications, says Kevin Bowyer, a professor of computer science at the University of Notre...

FULL TITLE: Honour student who works two jobs to support her siblings after her parents split up and left town is put in JAIL for missing school due to exhaustion. Devastated: Diane Tran, 17, has a criminal record and spent a night in jail after being charged with truancy. She works two jobs to support her family Abandoned: Her parents divorced 'out of the blue' and left Tran and her two siblings to fend for themselves Ms Tran said she works a full time job, a part-time job, and takes advancement and dual credit college level courses at Willis High...

By the time President Obama took the stage at the Fox Theater here, he was in the 18th hour of a 19-hour day. His tie was still knotted to the top as he launched into his stump speech, attacking his opponent’s record and defending his own. “I still believe in you,” he said, “and I hope you still believe in me.” SNIP The protesters waiting outside a campaign fund-raiser in Denver last week were probably never supporters. But some of their signs cut close to the bone. “Out of Hope, Ready for Change,” one read. “Obama’s Blvd. of Broken Promises,”...

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (KMOV.com) -- The Memorial Day Weekend has been filled with violence in East St. Louis. A man was shot and killed at a barbecue on Saturday. Another man was shot and killed early Sunday morning walking between bars. And about an hour later, 3 people were shot at a market. All the violence follows the “Stop the Violence” rally in East St. Louis on Friday featuring the parents of Trayvon Martin. News 4 asked Mayor Alvin Parks if the recent violence has been disheartening. “It's not disheartening, but what you have is frustration,” said Parks. “Because...

The French aided the Americans in their revolution against their British oppressors. Now Benoît Pous-Bertran de Balanda, the descendant of a French general who fought for the Americans, is trying to help his wealthy countrymen escape what he calls the tyranny of a new Socialist government primed to severely tax the rich. And France’s loss could be New York’s gain. Mr. Pous-Bertran de Balanda, 30, is a broker for wealthy French clients looking to buy apartments in Manhattan. With the election of the Socialist François Hollande as president this month, the wealthy in France are suddenly scrambling for places to...

Analysis: Kansas governor owns aggressive tax cutsBy JOHN HANNA | Associated Press – Thu, May 24, 2012 TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Plenty of Kansas legislators' fingerprints are on the aggressive income tax cuts signed into law this week by conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, including those of some GOP moderates now describing it as a budget crisis in the making. But Brownback now owns the legislation, even though it strayed significantly from the tax plan he outlined in January and he and his allies sought less aggressive alternatives in the legislative session's final days. He not only signed the bill,...

Obama's Truth Team Being BrainwashedBy L. Vincent Poupard | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 8 hrs ago.. COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama's campaign staff is attempting to invigorate the Truth Team by giving "proof" the president' s reported spending spree never happened, according to ABC News. The president's Truth Team is being directed to a Market Watch report that attempts to refute the facts about the spending spree and the team is asked to report any political attacks they hear. As a political consultant, the idea of the Truth Team does not sit well with me. President Obama has come under...

Full title: Americans James Blackston, Unnamed Teen, Arrested in Connection with Death of Nicola Furlong After Nicki Minaj Tokyo Concert TOP STORY: Two black Americans, one identified as dancer James Blackstone (James “King Tight” Blackstone or James Blackston), and another unnamed teen, (reported as Larry Perry) have been arrested in connection with the death of an Irish exchange student, Nicola Furlong, in Tokyo, Japan.