Free Republic

I have long held that America’s greatest contribution to the culinary world is the sandwich. I’m well aware that the sandwich as we know it today dates back long before the time the country even came into existence (In fact, to the time when ancient Jewish sage, Hillel the Elder, first put lamb between soft matzah around 1 B.C.). The Americans have elevated slamming awesome stuff between bread into something of an art form, and few people would argue that some of the very best examples are to be found in the cities and at the roadsides of the United...

Disagreement can not mean dysfunction. It can not turn into hatred. We all need to compromise and act in the best interest of our nation. One nation under God.. Yeah Right.

“The President is in no position to demand Congress pass immigration reform,” Crane said. “His administration and DHS leadership have undermined ICE's enforcement mission and put the public safety and national security at risk. Officers are currently forced to apply his DREAMer orders to detainees in prisons and jails.” Crane added that because of the president’s policies, severe criminals are released from jails all as a result of his support of amnesty. “Aggravated felons, child molesters and other violent criminals are released every day back into communities based on the President's unlawful policies,” Crane said.

The sequester cuts are going nowhere. A "blue ribbon" committee was set up in the budget/debt ceiling deal to look at the sequester cuts. Yet another "blue ribbon" committee - like the joke of a committee, the Super Committee. Obama said on February 19, 2013 that he would VETO any attempts to change the sequester cuts. So, he himself would have to take the lead on getting rid of the sequester cuts. And he can't blame the cuts on Congress again, either. Woodward showed in a fantastically accurate Washington Post article that Obama and Lew were the architects of the...

This public bashing needs to stop. Yesterday, I saw on television Ayotte still going at it talking about how this shutdown doesn't need to happen again. Maybe so, but enough of McCain, Graham, Ayotte, Corker, Peter King, etc, airing things out in public. Cruz, last night talked in part abvout McCain dive-bombing House Republicans, how this disunified Republicans, and how non-unity in the House/Senate torpedoed any chance of delaying or altering parts of ObamaCare - and Hannity brought up other individuals. But enough is enough. If they have a problem with someone or something take it to them in private...

Hollywood has lately tried to use symbolism to attack conservatives and trash Tea Party members to sway the low information voters toward the liberal point of view in order to create a socialist nation. For those familiar with "The Bridge on the River Kwai" we can imagine Obama as Colonel Saito the clueless Japanese leader, McConnell/Boener as Lt. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) and Palin/Cruz as Navy Lieutenant Commander Shears (William Holden). Nicholson holds out to torture for quite a time until he realizes he could build a bridge that could last 600 years. He's blinded to his goal of defeating...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Speaking exclusively to CBS 3, a 15-year-old high school student, whose identity we are concealing, described a terrifying attack by a gang of at least nine teenage boys as she was leaving an Interboro High School football game Monday night. The teenage victim described first being taunted by the attackers, who followed her down a neighborhood street, cursing and spitting at her, before she was repeatedly kicked and punched, at least one of the blows to her head. “It was scary, just horrible, just the worst feeling in the world,” she said. “He punched me in my...

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, October 16, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A North Carolina Register of Deeds accepted “marriage” license requests from eleven same-sex couples on Monday in a well-orchestrated pro-gay publicity stunt, flouting a 2012 amendment to the state constitution prohibiting such marriages. Video footage shows Register of Deeds Drew Reisinger taking information from same-sex couples for a license. Footage captured by Asheville Citizen-Times includes Reisinger telling same-sex couples that they qualify for a license "for every reason under the law except your sexual orientation” and shows a pro-homosexual crowd in the deeds office lobby cheering the same-sex couples on, singing “love...

California mom Maria Kang posted a Faceook photo of herself showing off six-pack abs in a sports bra and shorts posing with her three sons aged 3, 2 and 8 months, alongside the caption “What’s Your Excuse?” and the backlash has been extreme. The photo has received more than 12,000 Facebook shares and 16,000 comments. Most of them have not been complimentary and accuse Kang of mocking overweight mothers. "I don't feel this motivates people all that much, it's sorta just a prideful brag thrown onto Facebook in front of many women's faces just to tease and mock them," wrote...

MRCTV's Dan Joseph had a question on his mind that he couldn't shake: who bears the brunt of the blame for the government shutdown? Who really is responsible for the mess we're in right now? Is it President Obama or former President George W. Bush? He decided to take these questions to the heart of our misery: Washington D.C. http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vespa/shutdown-bushs-fault

I don't seem to ever recall Democrats turning on their own like several "Republicans" have recently. I wonder how things would have turned out in the fight to defund, delay, alter ObamaCare if so-called Republicans would have listened to Reagan, when he underwent so many personal attacks during his 1966 campaign for governor, which led to the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shatlt not speak ill of any Republican. Reagan said "It's a rule that I followed in that campaign and have ever since." McCain and others seem to like to evoke Reagan, but don't appear to follow what he said. In...

An iconic Michiana company is closing. Tuesday, FOX28 talked with owners of the Bonnie Doon plant and downtown Mishawaka location. They tell us there are many reasons for the shutdown such as the declining economy and the rise in production costs. But the number one factor? The anticipated cost of the Affordable Care Act.

To find out how many people participate in the program in your area and how that number has changed since 2000, enter your ZIP code, city, or county and state....

When highway patrol troopers attended a fatal car crash on Sunday night they discovered a rare and touching sight amid the horrifying crash scene. In the wreckage was an elderly couple and the lady was still holding hands with her husband. Floyd Nordhagen, 92, was already dead and his wife, Margaret, 88, would soon die at the crash scene. Livestock breeders in the rural community of Chattaroy in Washington state, the Nordhagens were known among their friends and neighbors for their devotion to each other, reports KREM news. Floyd was a “man who would help anyone in need, and a husband...

One of the users at The Firearm Blog has called the ATF and it seems like they have stopped processing all NFA paperwork as a result of the shutdown. I called [the BATFE] today and Vicky (a pleasant sounding lady who answered the phone) said they have been affected by the government shutdown. Staff furloughed, no applications are being processed, nor can they check status. My Form 4 was sent in Feb 2013, so who knows when I’ll see it. I guess the ATF is not an essential government function.

Berlin antiquities museum wants Holocaust survivor's family to return ancient gold tablet A Holocaust survivor's family urged New York's highest court Tuesday to let them keep an ancient gold tablet that their late father somehow obtained in Germany after World War II. Attorney Steven Schlesinger argued that the estate of Riven Flamenbaum has a legal claim, whether the native of Poland bought the relic from a Russian soldier or simply took it to compensate for losing his family at Auschwitz, the concentration camp where he spent several years. "Under the Soviet rules at the time, there was permission to pillage...

Los Angeles County deputies raided the home of Eugene Mallory and Tonya Pate. Authorities claim they had probable cause to search the premises because they could smell chemicals used to make methamphetamine while standing outside the house. Police suspected Mallory of being involved in an illegal meth ring. Mallory was asleep in bed when police entered his home. Pate said her husband has bad eyesight, and couldn’t tell that the men entering the house were police officers without his glasses. The deputies claim that Mallory pointed a gun at them, requiring them to take defensive measures. They shot him six...

On a characteristically foggy evening here, a group of predominantly single venture capitalists, tech executives, hedge-fund managers and philanthropists gathered for a cocktail party in a penultimate-floor suite at the St. Regis apartment complex. As guests ate oysters, baby lamb chops and perhaps the world’s smallest cheeseburgers, they were pitched a multiday, intellectually rigorous singles mixer to be held in January 2014 on Necker Island, Richard Branson’s 74-acre Caribbean paradise, “curated” by Kelleher International, a long-running, high-end matchmaking service that is targeting Silicon Valley with particular vigor. Wearing an Alexander McQueen dress and towering Valentino heels as she sold the...

Prepaid phone plans, where you pay the full price for a cellphone and then pay lower monthly rates without a contract, seem to offer what most budget-conscious people want. So why haven’t they really caught on?

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a weapon, but isn’t actually anything like a real weapon. This time it’s an autistic middle school student in South Carolina who was suspended until further notice after he brought a cartoonish drawing of a bomb he drew to school, reports local NBC affiliate WYFF. The student, 13-year-old Rhett Parham, showed his drawing to some older students at Hill Crest Middle School in Greenville. They reported it to school officials. They boy said he got the idea to draw the bomb from a video game called Bomberman Hero....

Pope Francis said it is true that in the past, people with epilepsy might have been mischaracterized as being possessed by demons, but that confusion did not refute the fact that the Devil exists and is so important that he “is on the first page of the Bible” and at the Bible’s end, “with the victory of God over the Devil.” … As for his comments on Satan and other demons, the Pope said, “Some may say, ‘But Father, you’re too old-fashioned. You’re frightening us with these things.’ No, it’s not me! It is the Gospel! And these are not...

When over the weekend, a Xerox "glitch" shut down the EBT system, better known as foodstamps, for nearly the entire day across 17 states leaving millions without "funding" to pay for food leading to dramatic examples of the basest human behavior possible, some of the more conspiratorial elements saw this merely as a dress rehearsal for what may be coming in the immediate future. While there was no basis to believe that is the case, a USDA (the currently shuttered agency that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) memo obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center in Utah carries in it...

Say hi to Lucy. Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y. I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group—I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story. So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing: Lucy's...

Good thing British authorities are keeping foes of jihad such as Pamela Geller and me out of the country, eh? If they let us in, people like these men with "roots in Turkey, Pakistan, Algeria and Azerbaijan" might get angry and start plotting violence. UK Death Watch Update: "British authorities break up terror plot," from AP, October 14 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

The UK is facing its greatest risk of blackouts since 2007/08 in the coming winter. The National Grid, responsible for balancing the country’s supply and demand of energy, last week has given this warning because Britain’s reserves of electricity have halved in 12 months. The UK and the USA are in the same boat here. Both countries have governments that have – or pretend to have — fallen for the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory hook, line, and sinker.

National Park Service (NPS) rangers removed the handles from some 40 public water pumps and closed restrooms in the 184.5 mile- C&O Canal National Historical Park, but they haven’t been able to keep hikers and bikers off the popular trail known as a “cyclist’s dream.” “It’s full every day,” said Gail Hall, who runs Mountain Side Bikes at the trailhead in Cumberland, Md. “They’re bringing in their own water and utilizing the tree-lined areas [of the park] for restrooms. Some towns like Harper’s Ferry even brought in potties to accommodate them. As long as they can pedal, they don’t care.”

Nielsen has conducted an investigation into the ratings for Megyn Kelly’s new Fox News Channel show, “The Kelly File,” following grousing by MSNBC chief Phil Griffin. The investigation has revealed that the numbers for Kelly are accurate. Last Tuesday, the day after its debut, “The Kelly File” doubled its audience, crushing “The Rachel Maddow Show,” its MSNBC competition.

Unrepentant former terrorist Bill Ayers was an invited dignitary at the University of Chicago’s International House last week, plugging his latest ode to himself in book form, reports The College Fix. The book, “Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident,” describes — from his vantage point – his disappointment with America after his friendship with Barack Obama became a focus of controversy during the 2008 Democratic primary and subsequent general election. At the University of Chicago event, Ayers said he was “amazed” to be “cast as some kind of public enemy” just because he had been a co-founder of the...

School “zero tolerance” policies claimed another victim as Massachusetts high school student Erin Cox was suspended from her volleyball team after giving an intoxicated friend a ride home from a party. Police determined that Cox had not consumed alcohol, and agreed that the honors student had only come to a party featuring underage drinking in order to make sure a friend got home safely. But Andover High School decided to punish Cox anyway, determining that she had violated the school district’s zero tolerance policy against drug and alcohol use. Cox was demoted from her position as captain of the volleyball...

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - An off-duty Richland County sheriff's deputy is in hot water after allegedly assaulting a woman, handcuffing her and slamming her head into a table at a Columbia restaurant on Monday. Columbia police arrested 49-year-old Deputy Paul Allen Derrick at Buffalo Wild Wings on Devine Street and charged him with assault. The incident happened just after 11 p.m. According to a Columbia Police Department incident report, Derrick approached a female soldier from Fort Jackson who appeared to be upset. The report states the 23-year-old showed no interest in Derrick and the two started arguing. Police say Derrick,...

A woman named Laura told me yesterday she was at the Market Basket in Salem, N.H. The woman in front of her took one EBT card from her designer purse, tried to run it through and failed. She shrugged and pulled out a second one. That one didn’t work either, so she took out a third card and tried that. When it didn’t work, she pulled out a wad of cash that would choke a horse, all 50s and 100s, and paid cash.

(CNSNews.com) -- Bureaucracies in the Obama Administration have thus far published approximately 11,588,500 words of final Obamacare regulations, while there are only 381,517 words in the Obamacare law itself. That means unelected federal officials have now written 30 words of regulations for each word in the law. What is commonly known as the Obamacare law includes both the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA). Since these bills were signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, various agencies in the administration have published 109 final regulations spelling out...

A teenager thought to be possessed by the devil was subjected to a violent crucifixion-style exorcism by four religious extremists, a court in France heard today (Monday). Three men and a woman belonging to the Seventh Day Adventist Church are accused of kidnapping, and acts of torture and barbarism against the 19-year-old. The young woman, referred to solely by the name Antoinette, was barely alive when police found her in a flat in a housing estate in the Paris suburb of Grigny. Her tormentors are accused of tying her up like Jesus on the cross, and keeping Antoinette in the...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (CBS Sacramento) – According to a recent study, women may enjoy a spicier sex life after they receive breast implants. Although the study size was small, researchers found that women experienced a significant boost in their arousal and sexual satisfaction after they had the surgery. However, researchers also found that women who were left with stretch marks after the procedure did not experience any improvement in their sex life.

Dan Price was once a successful but stressed out family man in Kentucky but left it all behind twenty years ago to live underground in the Oregon woods. He's the Hobbit hole man who walked away from the 9-to-5 life, dug himself a house under a horse pasture and he has never looked back. ‘When you get rid of things and you’re willing to have less, you’re given a gift of more,’ said Price as he sat in his 8-foot abode.Price once worked as a photojournalist to help support his wife and two young kids and to pay the family...

HOUSTON - The six law enforcement officers accused of taking part in an illegal horse racing and gambling operation in Crosby appeared in court Monday morning. The six officers involved are from four different agencies and include: Carlos Garza, a reserve deputy for the Maverick County Sheriff's Office Edward Scott, a reserve for the Fort Bend County Deputy Precinct 2 Constable's Office David Green, a reserve for the Fort Bend County Deputy Precinct 2 Constable's Office Richard Rene Rivera, a DPS State Trooper Joel Garcia, a deputy for the Harris County Constable's Office Secar Guadelupe Rangel, a deputy for the...

A cure for marijuana abuse could be on the horizon thanks to a new finding. Researchers found that increasing the levels of a naturally-occurring acid in the brain could stop addicts who are trying to give up from relapsing. The scientists discovered that kynurenic acid reduces the kick monkeys and rats get from THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. … Kynurenic acid, which can be produced from bananas and turkey, is thought to cause fewer side effects than other treatments that have been considered because it occurs naturally in the brain. …

“Mark ‘I wasn’t really buying that AR-15‘ Kelly is committing a felony right in front of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. It’s against New York State (NYS) law for someone to be in possession (i.e. holding) a handgun without a valid NYS Pistol license. Mark Kelly can’t have a NYS pistol license because he’s not a legal resident of New York.” An Empire State firearms attorney told TTAG that there’s an exception for firearms training but, as far as he can tell, not gun shows. Unless we hear otherwise, under Article 265 of New York State penal law,...

The Law of the Sea Treaty. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Yes, when it comes to international agreements that may seem harmless until you read the fine print, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty has plenty of company. Like the pacts cited above, the ATT has been signed by the U.S., but not ratified by the Senate. Nor is it likely to be. But that doesn’t mean it won’t prove damaging to the United States and its interests.

Another Democrat in the Colorado Senate is facing recall for voting for new gun control laws. Two other Democrats faced recall earlier this year over those laws, and despite having Michael Bloomberg and his anti-gun allies pour millions of dollars into Colorado to defend them, they were both defeated and removed. This third recall would switch control of the state Senate from D to R. So Gov. John Hickenlooper is scared, and wants Bloomberg and his anti-gun nuts to just stay away. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper suggests national gun-control groups stay away from a looming recall battle that could switch...

Administrators at Texas Christian University repeatedly shot down conservative students’ attempts to publicize an event by using a picture of a gun, and vetoed a gun safety course entirely. Administrators at the private university in Fort Worth, Texas prohibited student members of a Young Americans for Freedom chapter from advertising conservative commentator Bay Buchanan’s visit to the university by circulating a picture of an antique shotgun with the caption “Fully Loaded.”

A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital. Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.

I am a member of BJ's wholesale. They have this emergency food supply available: http://www.bjs.com/augason-farms-emergency-food-storage-kit-1-year-1-person.product.211362?dimId=8052 Any thoughts? I have a supply of food that I've been building up over time. About two months for my family of four (two adults - two children). I want a compact supply and something I can build further on. Thanks in advance.

FULL TITLE: South Carolina man who shot unarmed teenager dead will NOT face trial under controversial Stand Your Ground law A South Carolina mother has spoken out in shock after it was announced on Friday that the man who shot dead her 17-year-old son will not be tried for his murder because of the state's 'Stand Your Ground Law'. In April 2010, Shannon Anthony Scott, who was then 33, opened fire on a SUV full of teenage girls outside his home in Columbia and unintentionally hit unarmed 17-year-old Darrell Andre Niles in his car, killing him. Despite being arrested and...

Late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was concerned by the United States’ lean to the left after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, authors of a recently released book about “The Iron Lady” claim. Thatcher never commented publicly on President Obama’s leadership, though the Obama administration’s big government agenda runs counter to everything she believed in, former Thatcher aide Niles Gardiner and writer Stephen Thompson, authors of “Margaret Thatcher on Leadership: Lessons for American Conservatives Today”, told The Daily Caller. But even though Great Britain’s first female prime minister didn’t speak out publicly about Obama, she was privately concerned...

<p>There wasn’t much left by the time she arrived, just a burnt-out structure and the haze of smoke that lingered around it.</p> <p>The siding and gutters had melted. The roof was gone. Inside, piles of ash filled the rooms that had once bustled with the pleasant sounds of a family.</p>

The rights of a transgendered Colorado high school student are being put ahead of girls the boy harasses in the girls bathroom. A male student at Florence (CO) High School who claims to be transgendered has caused controversy by harassing female students in the girls room, but will not face any discipline – this despite vocal protests from the girls’ parents. ‘The boy’s rights as a transgender trump their daughters’ privacy rights,’ the school has told concerned parents, according to CBN. Unidentified because all involved are minors, the students are being threatened with removal from sports teams or even hate...

FULL TITLE: Horrific impact of deadly 'cannibal heroin' that 'eats' addicts alive: Drug that originated in Russia is now on the streets of the U.S. It is feared a deadly drug known as 'cannibal heroin' which eats flesh from the inside out is about to take off in the United States. Krokodil, which is similar to heroin and originated in Russia 10 years ago, turns users into zombies as their bodies begin to rot leaving addicts with reptilian skin. Following reports over the past month of cases of krokodil abuse in both Arizona and Chicago, Illinois, the drug is now...

The two Democratic state senators who lost their jobs last month in recall elections for endorsing strict gun control initiatives in Colorado are nothing more than sacrificial lambs in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s mission to reform the nation’s gun laws. While Bloomberg didn’t precisely use the words “sacrificial lambs,” he essentially said as much in an interview with Time Magazine, when he rejected the notion that the recall was a sign that his side had lost in Colorado. “What do you mean we lost?” Bloomberg told Time. “I’m sorry for those two people. But we won in Colorado....

On the best of days, D.C. witnessed millions of peaceful tea party marchers who were taxed enough already, yet most of the MSM ignored them and wrote them off as a few thousand radical right wingers with extreme views, an “AstroTurf movement” as Nancy Pelosi so derisively called them. On the worst of days, D.C. is a place to fear and the seat of power, corruption, and pettiness. Big rig drivers understood that. Unlike the past when truckers caused gridlock in Washington with their demonstrations, few American truckers showed up this time to protest their bloated government that does not...