Free Republic

So much for the seventh commandment. Unholy crooks better pray the big man upstairs wasn’t watching when they swiped a 5-by-3 foot crucifix from a Bronx church during services on Wednesday. The $5,000 German-made wooden cross was lifted from the lobby of Padau Roman Catholic Church — near a sign proclaiming, “Jesus wants all of us to come to him” — between 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., police sources said. “I’m distressed. That crucifix means so much to the people here … I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Josu Iriondo, 75, pastor of the church on East 166th Street...

HUIMANGUILLO, Mexico — The big-time gasoline thieves had already come and gone during the wee hours, filling their tanker trucks with stolen fuel and then fleeing. Then dawn broke, and word spread that a crime gang had again tapped into a gasoline pipeline, and it was spewing fuel into a ditch. At first, only a few farmers showed up, carrying plastic jerry cans. Then dozens. Then even more. All were eager to collect what spilled fuel they could. (...) Mexico is plagued by rampant energy theft. In the first eight months of this year, 7.5 million barrels went missing, a...

If you’ve been paying attention to the story about the myriad Jonathan Gruber videos, you’ve probably heard the sum of $400,000.00 bandied about. That’s how much the Department of Health and Human Services paid him to trick the CBO, lie to the American people, and help pass a bill that was reliant on “the stupidity of the American voter.” Since HHS has no real money of its own, that’s actually how much you, the taxpayer, paid him to con you. Unfortunately, it’s also just the beginning. In fact, $400K is only a drop in the Gruber ObamaCare money vault. So,...

The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property from suspected criminals. Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars. In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.” And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar. “A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,”...

Voter fraud probably gave Mr. Obama the victory in 2012. It may well prove to be crucial in deciding the tight race to capture the Senate in 2014. As many as one in six of the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. are registered to vote, and surveys of this group have shown that nearly all of those who do vote will vote “Democrat.” Why do the illegals vote this way? The answer lies in a simple metric that has driven the “Democrat” campaign for a decade, and which the frighteningly unpolitical GOP has never bothered to understand.

Inflation: We've chastised President Obama many times for failing to live up to promises he made when running for the office. So in fairness, we want to credit him for fulfilling one of them: his pledge to raise energy costs. In early 2008, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that "under my plan ... electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Obama was referring to his plan to cap greenhouse-gas emissions, which would, among other things, effectively choke off coal as an energy source. He was just as fond of high gasoline prices, telling CNBC in June 2008 — as gas...

A Michigan court ruled that the state branch of the powerful Service Employees International Union does not have to pay back tens of millions of dollars in dues taken from home health care workers who were forced into unionization. The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last week that the SEIU Healthcare Michigan does not have to pay back more than $34 million in dues collected from over 40,000 home health care workers. Many were forced into the union under state requirements that they join because they were taking care of sick family members at home.

The media celebrated Friday as the Department of Labor announced a “surge of hiring” – 248,000 new jobs added in September. The unemployment rate has now dropped to 5.9 percent. The Labor Department also revised upward the jobs numbers from July and August, adding 69,000 jobs; that puts the last three months of job growth at 671,000. The Associated Press, among others, speculates that the Federal Reserve may now talk about raising interest rates. But all is not well in the real economy. Here are five indicators that despite the rosy picture being painted of the Obama economy, things still...

The Senate adjourned Thursday for an extended break until November, having so far avoided this year to work a full week at a time. According to The Hill, threats by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to convene a two-week session in September and force lawmakers to work weekends have come to naught. Senators have not worked a single Friday in 2014, and both parties were keen to leave town Thursday until Nov. 12.

Lies, chaos and distraction are his transformation strategies One of Obama’s favorite games is ‘shift the word and meaning’ game. It reflects his deepest beliefs that lies, chaos and distraction are transformation strategies that an emerging ‘star dictator’ needs. The game goes like this: Always lie to the masses, insert cheat cards throughout the deck without the players knowing and redefine what is really going on right in front of your ‘stupid’ opponent’s eyes. When the few who don’t accept or believe your trick, rise up in the first round of the game…you know nothing, deny everything, then throw your...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) – THV11's CBS affiliate WREG reported that three people are now recovering after a mob of teenagers ran through a busy shopping plaza, seemingly picking out customers and Kroger employees at random to attack. A video of the incident has been shared with local news stations in the area and is quickly going viral. It shows a young adult lying still on the ground as others repeatedly kick him and stomp his head. Other are seen being chased or knocked to the ground. WREG said a witness told the cameras that the three people injured were attacked...

Obama is rotten in America. He has caused the country to go from the class of Audrey Hepburn to the clumsiness of Anna Nicole Smith. He needs a triple-E bra to contain his ego. He was supposed to unite red and blue, white and black. Instead he has made divisiveness his specialty. There is no coordination between his speeches and their pragmatic realities. People rioted in Ferguson, Missouri over criminal Michael Brown’s death. Obama did not defuse the rampant hatred.

This past Friday, Greta Van Susteren reported on numerous ways the Obama administration has made it difficult for reporters to investigate Benghazi. Van Susteren said that it’s been “like pulling teeth” trying to get answers and that “the Obama administration’s behavior post-Benghazi has been weird; like they’re hiding something.” She went on to say that as Fox News continued to investigate and press for answers, the administration’s behavior got “even weirder. She noted two major press conferences – one with the State Department and one with the CIA – when Fox News was not invited.

"Our strategy is to do direct voter contact," Steyer said in a recent interview. "Particularly in an off-year election, which depends more on turnout, actually having people going out and directly speaking with voters face to face is actually the thing that changes elections."

The insurance industry is warning pickup drivers to watch their backs. Tailgate theft is surging. Tailgates have a rough life. They get rear-ended, backed into objects and dented by shifting cargo. That’s why thieves find a ready market for replacements, selling them on EBay and Craigslist. They are even valuable as scrap metal. Tailgates are being stolen from private vehicles, commercial vehicles and even vehicles parked on dealership lots, the National Insurance Crime Bureau said.

It’s one thing to watch race hustlers like the Rev. Al Sharpton bellowing, “No justice, no peace.” But when the attorney general of the United States makes false but racially incendiary claims about today’s alleged “pernicious racism,” we are in uncharted territory. Holder complains about different prison rates, different school expulsion rates and longer prison sentences for black boys and men compared to white boys and men. He equates “equal rights” with “equal results.”

As I sit watching the wall to wall coverage of the events that are taking place in Ferguson, Missouri, I can’t help but wonder how different things might be if an African-American police officer had shot and killed an unarmed white teenager. If there were video evidence showing a hypothetical white teen stealing merchandise and strong arming a clerk in a convenience store prior to being shot, would the media coverage be anywhere close to what we are seeing? I think not. The coverage would not be nearly as rabid. First of all the racial element would be non-existent. You...

Recently, as my friend and I were waiting in line at a farmers market in Pennsylvania, we chatted with a man also waiting in line. As we left, she and I discussed the appallingly short memory span of many today. She and I discussed how the gentleman in line with us had blamed President George W. Bush for Americans dying in combat, claiming, “Bush led those boys over there to die.” But, like many, he conveniently forgot the history of lives lost under Democratic presidents. A close friend escaped Castro’s Cuba with his family. Today he is a successful businessman....

“This whole talk about impeachment is coming from the president’s own staff, and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. … We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans. …” – House Speaker John Boehner, July 28, 2014 We’re well aware that Barack Obama has committed impeachable offenses. He has indeed abused the powers of the executive branch, nullified separation of powers, as well as having bypassed Congress and legislated from the Oval Office. There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the fact that most of the talk of impeachment lately has come from...

HOUSTON, TEXAS – A group of would-be thieves picked the wrong gas station to rob. Mayura Dissanayaka was behind the counter when he noticed his co-worker return to the store after a run to the bank. The men in an SUV were watching too because they went straight for the man and the bank bag as soon as he got out of his car. “Well, just a reaction, you see someone get beat up, you just go out,” said Dissanayaka. Dissanayaka ran outside before the two robbers even saw him. “The first guy I saw, I just kicked him in...