Free Republic

New York, NY - Sunday night at the Grammys, Queen Latifah officiated the marriage of 34 couples – including same-sex couples – during the performance of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ Grammy-nominated song, “Same love.” But the story gets better. During the half-time show at next Sunday’s Super Bowl, Bruno Mars will officiate a same-sex marriage ceremony while performing one of his earlier hit songs, “Marry You.” Although the identities of the same-sex couple have not been revealed, there is widespread speculation that one of the partners is a gay NFL player. In the past months, plans by NFL to...

2014 brought a role reversal of sorts for gold and equities, with the metal higher and stocks lower, in contrast to last year’s performance. With January drawing to a close, can gold hold its gains and will equities continue to fall? Technical charts may offer some clues, analysts said. As of 1:20 p.m. EST, gold for April delivery was $18.60 lower to $1,243.60 per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange “Gold is returning to its historic role as a safe haven as we’re seen problems globally,” said Darin Newsom, senior analyst at Telvent DTN. “Equities...

".....................................................................What if none of this results in an actual bill? Politically, that might be the best outcome for the party. That’s the point of looking and sounding open to negotiation—redefining President Obama as unreasonable, obstinate, and tyrannical. A couple of days before the conference, I asked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio whether “legalization” without citizenship required a bill at all. The president could, after all, issue an executive action, calling off deportations. “That would be a terrible mistake,” said Rubio. “No. 1, it would expire at the end of his presidency. No. 2, I think it’s an overreach of his powers....

So if you think that Malik Obama, president Obama’s brother dons a Hamas scarf for sentimental reasons only, think again. The evidence he materially supports Hamas financially is another reason to begin to consider this man’s terror links. As Executive Secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organization, Malik helps to lead an organization that collects funds and sends them directly to Hamas; this can be found on several Islamic websites...

**SNIP** In a frank and unflinching critique not seen or heard on the broadcast or cable news shows, Sawant described Obama's renewed focus on income inequality as an indictment of his own failures and misguided economic policy. Pointing to record high poverty and the fact that "95% of the gains in productivity during the so-called recovery have gone to the top 1%," Sawant argued that Obama's rhetoric on inequality has been forced on him by popular "outrage over the widening gulf between the super-rich" and the millions of workers, many working in low-wage retail and fast food jobs, who generated...

AUSTIN — State Sen. Wendy Davis and Democrats propelling her gubernatorial bid have attracted quite a bit of unwanted attention in the last couple of weeks: national and state media prodding deep into Davis’ biography and the James O’Keefe-infiltration of Battleground Texas, for example. Add this to the list: It appears folks are lining up to file complaints against Davis with the Texas Ethics Commission. There have been two examples this week — and it highlights just why the commission has argued to keep its complaint process private, since the filings are often used to smear opponents before their merits...

Beyonce is one of the world's most scrutinized pop stars, and now that study is moving to academia. The Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey is offering a course called "Politicizing Beyonce." Kevin Allred, a doctoral student who is teaching the class, tells the university's online news site that he is using Beyonce's career as a way to explore American race, gender and sexual politics.

The Unprecedented, Powerful Coalition Three Major Conservative Personalities Are Building Likely Has the Establishment Terrified Two heads are better than one, as the old saying goes. That surely means that three heads are even better. If there’s any truth to that saying, the establishment in Washington and progressives everywhere are likely none too pleased to hear that conservative personalities Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity are on the same page and joining forces to help the country get back on what they feel is the right path. After previously allowing themselves to be caught up in a “stupid” competitive...

<p>A federal judge on Thursday upheld Connecticut's tough gun control law that was passed in the wake of the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.</p> <p>The stringent law is constitutional, said the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Alfred Covello, denying a legal challenge by a group of gun owners.</p>

Majuro (Marshall Islands) (AFP) - An emaciated man whose boat washed up on a remote Pacific atoll this week claims he survived 16 months adrift on the Pacific, floating more than 12,500 kilometres (8,000 miles) from Mexico, a researcher said Friday.

The ice storm that shut down Atlanta this week was a "fiasco" that was "manmade from start to finish," according to Atlanta Magazine's Rebecca Burns, writing for Politico. But we have to note that, in part, the men who made the fiasco were white ones.

Quinn and Rose are off the air, (temporarily, I hope!) Gone, but DEFINITELY not forgotten! Meanwhile, our friendly group of dedicated FReeper Q&R fans will meet in our usual spot - same time, same station - as we always have! So grab your coffee - or whatever you choose to start your day - and drop in for some political chit-chat, or just to shoot the breeze! We are all coming from - or going to - work, but we all stop in to say ‘hi!’ Feel free to join us!

LONDON -- Amid rising anger from local residents and forecasts of more rain, the British government sent military officials to southwest England on Thursday to help deal with floodwaters that have turned whole villages into islands and drowned parts of the country's storybook countryside. Some rural communities in the county of Somerset have been cut off for weeks by the flooding, the result of storms that have lashed Britain almost nonstop since Christmas. The freak weather is linked to the harsh snowstorms in the United States, where cold fronts have collided with warm fronts in the South and strengthened the...

New York State Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that directly addressed the controversy surrounding the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli universities. […] The bill was sponsored by Democratic Senator Jeff Klein, and it passed with a wide margin of 56-4. […] The new legislation would prevent New York higher-ed institutions from paying membership fees to academic groups that boycott Israel and will no longer reimburse students or scholars for their travel expenses to conventions of groups that have voted to boycott the Jewish State. …

Calling Obamacare a “Rube Goldberg-like contraption” that has caused more people to lose their health insurance than those who are enrolled in the exchanges, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) revised his previous assessment that once the government subsidies kicked in, it would be “ impossible to repeal Obamacare” because Americans would become “addicted to the sugar.” “We are seeing the fruits of the battle that so many millions of Americans engaged in last fall to stop Obamacare, and I think the direct result of that fight was to elevate the national debate over the harms that Obamacare has caused,” Cruz said...

Israel’s “peace partner” will be invited to visit the country whose leaders refer to Israel as “the rabid dog of the region,” the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday, citing an Arabic language newspaper in London. According to the report, Iran intends to invite Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to visit Tehran soon. The Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported that Abbas’s visit to Tehran aims at rehabilitating the Iranian-PA official ties that have been frigid for years due to Iran’s support to Hamas, longtime rival to Abbas’s Fatah movement. …

(MOSCOW) - Russia on Friday slammed as a "circus" US Secretary of State John Kerry's planned weekend meeting with Ukrainian opposition leaders. The top US diplomat is due to meet former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, leader of the UDAR (Punch) party and opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday. Russia's outspoken Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin called Kerry's upcoming meetings a "circus" in a tweet on Friday. "It's also necessary to involve Verka Serdyuchka in the talks," he said in apparent sarcasm, referring to Ukraine's bombastic drag queen pop star. "Her/his authoritative...

The PJ Tatler recently reported on the case of Larry Brinkin, for many years an “icon” on the Human Rights Commission in San Francisco: “A former high-ranking San Francisco government employee convicted of felony possession of child pornography will continue to receive his government pension because, according to city regulations, evidence of ‘moral turpitude’ is required to revoke a pension yet viewing violent kiddie porn does not qualify as moral turpitude." (Emphasis theirs.) Michael Chapman of CNSNews.com also noted shocking racist remarks in Brinkin’s e-mails about "nailing" black toddlers. The media that loves riffing on pedophile Catholic priests have done...

The Santa Rosa Police Department has completed its investigation of the Oct. 22 shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Erick Gelhaus. The results of the investigation conducted in conjunction with the Petaluma Police Department have been sent to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office. It is time for my staff consider all the facts // Snipp // http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/07/sonoma-deputy-who-killed-andy-lopez-faces-new-allegations-in-amended-suit/ According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, a 20-page document was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleging that Deputy Erick Gelhaus has a history of using excessive force.

The special operations branch of the Korean People's Army, tasked with conducting asymmetric warfare against the United States and South Korea, is reported to comprise 200,000 soldiers, according to the Seoul-based Chosun Ilbo. As the South Korean government's defense white paper noted in 2010, North Korean special forces consist of 60,000 specialized troops and 140,000 light infantry soldiers. General Walter Sharp, the former commander of the South Korean-US Combined Forces Command stated that the infantry soldiers are lightly armed and trained to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines to destroy key installations and engage in black ops. Specialized troops may infiltrate...

Before I get to the tweets that serve as a timeline, we need to set the stage. David Rauf is the Austin bureau reporter for the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle. Those newspapers serve Texas’ largest and second-largest cities. They are big dogs among the Texas press. Jan Soifer is the chair of the Travis County Democratic Party. The Travis County Democratic Party held a fundraiser with Wendy Davis on Tuesday, and Davis delivered her stump speech. That’s normal stuff. But in a highly unusual move, the TCDP and the Davis campaign barred the event to all but...

While most Western military experts focused their attention on the production of the Shenyang J-15, China's first carrier-based fighter and the launch of larger surface combat vessels including two Type 054A frigates and one Type 052D destroyer, the official website of the People's Liberation Army Navy said that the Type 056 Jiangdao-class corvette is in fact the ship class that the nation produced the most of in 2013. The Beijing-based Sina Military Network indicated that ten Type 056 Jiangdao-class corvettes had been launched this year to replace the older Type 037 submarine chasers. Mounted with two triple torpedo tubes, the...

Explanation: Eerie pillars of light ring the edges of this snowy little planet. Of course the little planet is planet Earth, shown in a nadir-to-zenith, around-the-horizon, little planet projection. The spherical panoramic image mosaic maps a view from Siilinjärvi in eastern Finland. Flat ice crystals, like those more often found in high, thin clouds, are gently fluttering in very cold air near the surface. The pillars of light appear as their briefly horizontal facets reflect upward directed light from ground sources downward, toward the observer. In fact, the fluttering crystals produce an effect analogous to the shimmering columns of moonlight...

Iran on Thursday dismissed as “unrealistic and unconstructive” comments by President Barack Obama that international sanctions linked to its nuclear program had forced Tehran to the negotiating table, AFP reported. “The delusion of sanctions having an effect on Iran’s motivation for nuclear negotiations is based on a false narration of history,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama said that U.S. and international pressure had led to the interim deal struck in November between Iran and six global powers, under which Tehran agreed to...

Gut-check time: Am I enough of a hack to blog a poll as silly as this purely to goose my readers with a frisson of anxiety over another Romney run? Even by the usual hot-garbage standards of early presidential polling, this one’s hard to redeem. They’ve got a guy in the lead who’s definitely, assuredly not running — per the “Mitt” documentary, he only ran in 2012 because he knew he was next in line for the nomination — and they’ve omitted two guys in Marco Rubio and Scott Walker who very well might be. How informative is a poll...

James Madison had it exactly right. Referring to infringements on our freedoms, the Father of the Bill of Rights once wrote that such encroachments were more often “gradual and silent” than “violent and sudden.” That’s exactly what we’re seeing with President Obama’s proposed regulation on so-called 501(c)(4) groups: a stealth attempt to stifle the ability of ordinary Americans to participate in the political process. The administration’s proposal, quietly floated over Thanksgiving, is just the latest in a long line of attempts to skirt the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United, which basically said that businesses and independent groups have...

The evaluation team at the CEAM test centre has been developing the concept of operations for Rafale’s new AESA radar. The team leader gives us an update. On 24th October 2012, a new type of Rafale took to the skies from the runway at Mont-de-Marsan (BA 118) Air Base, home of the French Air Force’s CEAM test centre. From the outside, there was virtually nothing to distinguish it from the dozens of Rafales that had already visited the base. However, hidden inside the radome was the promise of an air combat revolution: the RBE2-AESA, the first European active electronically scanned...

(snip) The story unfolds: Traveling by commercial airlines from Albuquerque, NM to LasVegas,NV, (Police Chief) Harger was asked by TSA to show his credentials. Minutes later a man flashed a badge claiming to be a federal agent (agency unknown) also demanding to see Harger’s credentials. (snip) The following morning, Harger was informed by Sheriff Douglas C. Wood of Sandoval County, New Mexico, that Harger was to dismantle the Jamez Springs Police Department. (be sure to click through and read the whole thing)

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sat down with The Daily Show host Jon Stewart on Thursday for a contentious interview. The interview became tense when Stewart attempted to get Pelosi to explain why government appears to function so poorly to the outside observer. When Pelosi attempted to explain why this was the case, Stewart became even more agitated. “Right now, we have a school of thought in the House Republican caucus that is anti-government, anti-science, anti-Obama,” Pelosi said when asked about the nature of governance in Washington. “They have a trifecta that just enables them to vote against...

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of “Word for the Day”. ImprecationNoun 1. The act of imprecating. 2. A curse. Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the Word for the Day in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review threads are linked for your edification. ;-) Practice makes perfect.....post on.... Review Threads: Review Thread One: Word For The Day, Thursday 11/14/02: Raffish (Be SURE to check out posts #92 and #111 on this...

TheBlaze Blog got around to reading some of Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist‘s memoir, co-written by his lookalike Ellis Henican, and it can mostly be summed up as 340 pages of why Crist renounced the Republican Party and should now be elected as the next Democratic governor of the Sunshine State. The book recounts the cute moment Crist told Obama adviser Valerie Jarett he was going to register as a Democrat (he was formerly a Republican-turned independent) during a White House tour. And the first line of the final chapter begins, “I am convinced of it: The Democratic Party is...

It’s no coincidence that sage grouse habitat also happens to intersect both the largest untapped coal deposits in the country as well as large parts of the Bakken oil field. It’s clear the primary motivation to focus on sage grouse for ESA listing is to provide yet another tool for special interest groups to block energy development. And in this obstructionist toolbox, there’s no heavier sledgehammer than the Endangered Species Act. What an interesting irony, then, that so much effort is going into “protecting” one bird from energy development, when the Obama administration is turning a blind eye to hundreds...

(Reuters) - A decades-old medical mystery - why antioxidants such as vitamin E and beta carotene seemed to accelerate the growth of early lung tumors in high-risk populations such as smokers, rather than protect them from cancer, as theory suggests - may have been solved, according to research published on Wednesday. In essence, "antioxidants allow cancer cells to escape cells' own defense system" against tumors,... That lets existing tumors, even those too small to be detected, proliferate uncontrollably. .... The antioxidants caused a 2.8-fold increase in lung tumors, made the tumors more invasive and aggressive, and caused the mice to...

Pray For Our American Heroes, Our Athletes, and Our Nation Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV) ----

More than even Italy or France, China guzzled almost 2 billion bottles of red wine last year. Red wine consumption has skyrocketed in the country since 2007, partially because the color red signals good fortune, experts say.China has surpassed France and Italy to become the biggest consumer of red wine in the world. According to a joint report out of Vinexpo and The International Wine and Spirits Research (IWSR), Chinese oenophiles tipped back the equivalent of 1.865 billion bottles last year (or 155 million 9-liter cases).

Consumer prices are soaring, the treasury is running low on foreign currency and the peso has had its sharpest slide in 12 years. Instead of rioting, though, Argentines are falling back on tried and true survival skills to cope with the turmoil. Inflation is at about 30 percent and there's been a 15 percent drop in the peso's value against the U.S. dollar over a few days. But Argentina has gone through five much more dire economic times since the 1930s. So some Argentines are hoarding dollars, while others stockpile goods or plow their savings into real estate. More people...

Republicans rate Sarah Palin higher than every potential 2016 presidential contender, even though she is not even considered to be in the running, a new poll has found. A Public Policy Polling survey conducted Jan. 23-26 showed that the former governor of Alaska has a 70 percent favorability rating among GOP primary voters, topping six other potential candidates in the poll, even though her name was not on the list of 2016 GOP candidates to choose from. "The best-liked person we tested on this poll with Republican primary voters is actually Sarah Palin," the poll noted. In the survey of...

Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), asked scientists at a climate change conference on Thursday in Arlington, Va., to help advance President Barack Obama’s agenda on climate change. […] Peter Saundry, executive director of NCSE, introduced McCarthy by noting Obama’s pledge to act unilaterally on climate change. “President Obama has announced that he will work with Congress whenever he can but will not be held hostage—will move forward and do the utmost, we hope, through executive authority and through the agencies,” Saundry said. “The Supreme Court has noted that EPA has authority under (the) Clean Air Act...

OK this is really strange. there is a growing number of videos showing up on youtube of people getting snow and putting a lighter or open flame to it and the snow turning black and far too little water is formed out of the snow. Here is the first video I saw Snow test Here are some others: What is this snow?!?! Georgia Fake Snow WTF Snow? IS THIS SNOW? There are lots more on Facebook and vines and such... OK many people are convinced it is chemtrail related I never believed in such things. But what concerns me is...

A 77-year-old man died after collapsing across the street from a fire station, where his daughter had asked for immediate assistance and was instead rebuffed by a firefighter who told her he couldn’t help unless dispatch instructed him to intervene.The man, Medric Cecil Mills, collapsed near the Engine 26 fire station in the Brookland area of Washington, D.C. at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. His daughter, Marie Mills, went to the station to beg for immediate medical assistance. But the firefighter she encountered there told her that she had to first call 911 so that dispatch could instruct him to...

Wendy Davis, the long shot Democratic candidate for Texas governor, deserves all the scrutiny she is getting for blurring some facts in her compelling life story. When she got divorced, how long she lived as a single mother in a trailer, whether she was remarried and financially comfortable when she went off to Harvard Law School are not minor points in a narrative built on overcoming hardship. Politicians, whatever their party, must be held to the highest standard of truth, so it’s entirely fair to rap her for overstating the adverse conditions of her life in order to make her...

The federal government has gotten a new bill in its failed attempt to seize more than $1 million from a California woman who said the money was her life savings earned over years as an exotic dancer... Entire story at: http://www.omaha.com/article/20140129/NEWS/140128484/1707

The mission of AmericanLongrifles.org is to promote, preserve and support the traditional art and craft of building and using the American Longrifle. This would include accouterments and related arms of the period.

So-called Republican Ana Navarro told a left-of-center outlet this week that she believes some people on the right oppose amnesty because they are racist. Navarro, the former "strategist" to liberal Republicans like John McCain and Jon Huntsman, has been elevating her profile among the mainstream press in the so-called "Acela corridor" by bashing conservatives, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Though there is often hardly a difference between the mainstream media and left-of-center outlets like Talking Points Memo, the Huffington Post, or BuzzFeed, Navarro now wants to be adored by them as well. There is...

January 31, 2014Memorial of Saint John Bosco, Priest    Reading 1 2 Sm 11:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17 At the turn of the year, when kings go out on campaign,David sent out Joab along with his officersand the army of Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.David, however, remained in Jerusalem.One evening David rose from his siesta and strolled about on the roof of the palace.From the roof he saw a woman bathing, who was very beautiful.David had inquiries made about the woman and was told, “She is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, and wife of Joab’s armor bearer Uriah...

Microsoft’s cloud chief, Satya Nadella, will lead the company as its next chief executive, according to a report from Bloomberg. Microsoft’s board is “preparing to name” Nadella chief executive, Bloomberg reported Thursday afternoon. Nadella, whose official title is executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group, had been one of the front-runners in the race to replace current chief executive Steve Ballmer, who said last August that he planned to step down within a year. But the board is also considering replacing Bill Gates as chairman of the company, Bloomberg reported, ousting the company’s co-founder and possibly replacing him...

The whole world knows that English spelling is a sick joke. If English is to be the international language of business and commerce, then a rational alphabet and a rational system of spelling need to be devised for it, and the present hodgepodge system needs to be jettissoned altogether. The inordinate amount of time spent by foreigners and English speaking children alike learning our present system of spelling would be better of spent on more reasonable goals. A reasonable system of spelling for English would be based on the following ideas: It should to the extent possible use letters which...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuA2_P-m4Sk

Editor’s Note: The following primer for Survivalist Snipers is a must-read (and implement) for anyone who is serious about preserving their life and liberty in the event of a worst-case scenario. Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com has generously contributed his time and energy to developing this guide and sharing it with our community.(Pictured: Alt-Market.com founder Brandon Smith)God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best - VoltaireFor a long time sniper tactics have been consider by many, even in the military, to be akin to a kind of state designated “murder”...

There was a saying I heard a lot when I was growing up. Whenever someone got into trouble, they would say "the devil made me do it". I said it then and I'll say it now. Mr. Lucifer received a lot of blame for things he had nothing to do with. It was just an easy way to shed the blame for the wrongdoing some people were involved in. Such is the case with the modern version of that phrase. Whenever you ask liberal Democrats who their worst nemesis is, you are almost certain to hear something that blames the...