Free Republic

In President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address, he said that "higher education can't be a luxury. It is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford." Such talk makes for political points, but there's no evidence that a college education is an economic imperative. A good part of our higher education problem, explaining its spiraling cost, is that a large percentage of students currently attending college are ill-equipped and incapable of doing real college work. They shouldn't be there wasting their own resources and those of their families and taxpayers. Let's look...

Political correctness has led the U.S. government to ignore the growing threat of Muslim-Americans radicalized by the violent Islamist extremist ideology promulgated by al Qaeda and its affiliates, according to a shocking report released by the House Committee on Homeland Security. As a result, the terrorist threat to military communities is “severe and on the rise” while political correctness continues to stifle the military’s ability to effectively understand and counter the threat. In fact, the report actually states that the Obama Administration has chosen political correctness over accurately labeling and identifying certain terrorist attacks appropriately, even denying Purple Hearts medals...

Not only do my ex’s live in Texas, but your ex’s, and pretty much everyone else’s ex’s as well. All of America is moving to Texas. Especially the ex-residents of high tax states like California and New York. And, I'll bet many of the ex-residents of Big Brother tax and spend Massachusetts, Illinois and Michigan are there too. The fact is Texas led the nation in net population growth for the past decade, while New York and California led the nation in net population loss. Interestingly, the most new Texans (over 550,000) came from one state- California. They brought with...

If the Administration had wanted to make the point the Israel is a valued partner in counterterrorism activities, it could have insisted that Israel be there or else moved the meeting. In light of increased sensitivity to intelligence leaks, it seemed innocuous – or even admirable – when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) asked the Senate to remove a few words from the US-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act: the "sense of the Senate" part of the bill included the sentence, "Expand already close intelligence cooperation, including satellite intelligence, with the Government of Israel;" ODNI wanted the...

Google has officially unveiled its very first own-brand tablet. We've been hearing rumors about a Google/Asus tablet collaboration for several months now. Today, at Google I/O, the search giant confirmed its partnership with Asus and showed off the fruits of their combined labor: The Asus Nexus 7.

In December of 1968, America won the moon race. NASA didn’t actually accomplish JFK’s goal of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to earth until eight months later with the historic Apollo 11 mission, but on that fateful Christmas Eve, when the Apollo 8 astronauts read from Genesis to an awestruck planet, as they circled our nearest neighbor, the Soviets knew that they weren’t going to win, and they not only quit, but also pretended they’d never been racing. It was a very risky flight, the first one to send an Apollo capsule beyond earth orbit,...

With the city of Stockton moving to become the nation's largest city to seek protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, Tuesday night's City Council meeting was quiet, with an evident sadness on faces in the packed chambers. The working-class port city -- from where many of California's agricultural exports set sail -- lived largely on credit during economic boom times. The city borrowed millions of dollars for ambitious, eye-catching projects in the mid-2000s. Up went a sports arena, hotel and promenade. The city booked a Neil Diamond concert as a kickoff to better times. Houses in sprawling tracts sold quickly...

The West is understandably nervous about the election of Mohamed Morsi. The president-elect of Egypt is taking charge of a febrile situation. The economy is contracting and human rights abuses are rampant—attacks on Coptic churches by Islamic groups have forced an estimated 100,000 Christians to flee the country. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood is philosophically committed to creating a state governed by Islamic law, and some say that his victory poses a threat to Israel. Now he wants to reach out to Iran. But it would be wrong to conclude that Islamic democracy is a contradiction in terms. Whatever new state emerges...

From the University of California – Santa BarbaraThese are views of vegetation in summer and winter of suburban Minneapolis landscapes from the 500 foot tall KUOM radio tower where measurements for the study were made. In what might be the first study to report continuous measurements of net CO2 exchange of urban vegetation and soils over a full year or more, scientists from UC Santa Barbara and the University of Minnesota conclude that not only is vegetation important in the uptake of the greenhouse gas, but also that different types of vegetation play different roles. Their findings will be published...

The Ivy League of Ancient Roman Gladiator Schools If you got sent back in time 2,000 years to ancient Rome, you probably wouldn't want to choose a career as a gladiator. After all, it was a messy existence, with a fairly low life expectancy. But if you were up to your eyeballs in debt, or wanted a chance at fortune or fame, you could break in at the top, by going to gladiator school. And four different Roman gladiator academies rose above the nearly 100 others, to become the best of the best. At these schools, you'd learn specific fighting...

Patrick Kennedy, a former representative from Rhode Island and son of the late Ted Kennedy, warned in a fundraising email for Congressional Democrats that if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds President Obama’s health care law, then “dangerous Tea Party extremists will go on a rampage.” The fundraising email was sent out Wednesday afternoon, to raise money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Health Care Rapid Response Fund” ahead of Thursday morning’s expected ruling by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the health care law. “My father, Ted Kennedy, spent his entire political career fighting tooth and nail for universal...

The top Democrat in charge of getting other Democrats elected to the House is urging his party's candidates to steer clear of the national convention later this year. The piece of advice from Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, came during the Reuters Washington Summit Tuesday. "If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts," Israel said of Democratic congressional candidates, according to Reuters. The comment follows decisions by several vulnerable Democrats to skip this year's national convention -- to be held in early September in Charlotte, N.C. "A trip...

Nuclear Balancing Would Mean StabilityThe past several months have witnessed a heated debate over the best way for the United States and Israel to respond to Iran's nuclear activities. As the argument has raged, the United States has tightened its already robust sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, and the European Union announced in January that it will begin an embargo on Iranian oil on July 1. Although the United States, the EU, and Iran have recently returned to the negotiating table, a palpable sense of crisis still looms. It should not. Most U.S., European, and Israeli commentators and policymakers...

Time-Warner learning credibility is a precious, frail thing In the wake of it's worst primetime month in 20 years, CNN is taking an ever harder hit to it's once-towering prestige... it's lowest-rated quarter in primetime since 1991(!)... For Q2 2012 the floundering network scared-off viewers by the score as the vital 25-54 demographic crashed and all primetime programs posted steep declines. CNN averaged 446,000 total viewers and 129,000 in that all-important (to advertisers) 25-54 group in primetime. Compared to last year, that’s down 35% and 41% respectively.  For purposes of comparison, for Q2 2012 Fox scored 1.79M viewers in primetime,...

Mitt Romney campaign representatives will meet with The Washington Post today to seek a formal retraction of its June 21 report that Bain Capital invested in firms that specialized in outsourcing American jobs, POLITICO has learned. The representatives will meet with executive editor Marcus Brauchli and other senior Post staff at 2 p.m. today at the Post's offices in Washington. The group intends to argue that the Post's allegations against Bain Capital and the firms in question are either incomplete or inaccurate, sources familiar with the meeting say. Specifically, the group will argue that the Post misinterpreted the SEC filings...

Jerusalem, June 12 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tore a tendon and will have to wear a cast for several weeks after he injured himself during a friendly soccer match between Jewish and Arab youths. The soccer match was held in Jerusalem Monday as part of the show "The Royal Tour" that features world leaders acting as tour guides to boost tourism, Xinhua reported. Shortly after joining the match, Netanyahu slipped and tore his tendon. "I hurt my leg during a youth soccer match while I was trying to show Israel's good side," Netanyahu said in a video on...

TEANECK — An elderly man was arrested Monday night after a neighbor's fart allegedly drove him to threaten him with a gun, police said. Daniel Collins, 72, had been involved in an ongoing dispute with the unidentified neighbor for some time, Det. Lt. Andrew McGurr told NJ.com. The neighbor told officers that Collins pointed a revolver at him in the vestibule of their apartment building at 694 Cedar Lane at around 9:25 p.m. Collins said he confronted the man after hearing him pass gas in front of his apartment door, but denied threatening him with a gun. He consented to...

h/t John Hawkins at Right Wing News for inspiring this piece by supplying the quote.

A German court has ruled that circumcising male infants for religious reasons, as Jews in particular have done for thousands of years, constitutes grievous bodily harm and is a crime, regardless of parental consent. A public health specialist who is also a traditional Jewish circumciser called the ruling “stupid,” suggesting Wednesday that while “politically-correct modern liberal thinkers” would not be open to persuasion about Jewish values, they should at least consider studies finding wide-ranging health benefits from the procedure. In a ruling bound to fuel a long-running debate over circumcision, a regional court in Cologne said Tuesday that the “fundamental...

Title shortened for space. Not so funny to conservatives and AZ citizens.

That’s not very satisfying, of course. So, some Fast and Furious critics have searched for a better one — not by analyzing the evidence, but by concocting a conspiracy theory: specifically, that the Obama administration allowed the guns to go to Mexico deliberately in order to increase gun crime there, so it could cite that crime as a reason for more gun control here. And unfortunately, Fast and Furious’s lead critic, House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, has joined them.

A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust. In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth's ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico's vicious drug war. Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron."...

A Special Interview with Highly Decorated Military Hero Chris Kyle Ed Young hosts a special interview with Chief Chris Kyle, Navy SEAL and author of American Sniper. Join us as this American hero describes how his love for God, family and country shaped his military career and how he continues to serve and support our troops. Can't join us? Every weekend you can watch the worship experience at FellowshipLive.com Services at Grapevine, Plano, Fort Worth, Dallas (Texas) and Miami, Florida campuses this Saturday night and Sunday morning. Fireworks show at Grapevine campus Saturday night. Rebroadcast online afterwards: www.fellowshipchurch.com/messages See website...

Marvel is teaming with Susan G. Komen for the Cure to observer Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October with several pink-tinged variant covers, plus a one-page advertorial supplement educating readers on the issue. The following comics, all out in October, will have Komen-themed variant covers: · Avengers #31 · Captain America #18 · Captain Marvel #5 · Fantastic Four #611 · Invincible Iron Man #526 · Mighty Thor #21 · Uncanny X-Men #20 · Wolverine #315 "Marvel is proud to partner with Susan G. Komen For the Cure to support their unparalleled efforts to raise awareness about the risk of...

Anyone else have a personal favorite? This below is my personal all time favorite piece of The New York Times. It persuasively demonstrates denial/propaganda of the communists and their dupes. Here is the money quote: "It now seems clear the Rosenbergs were neither as innocent as they claimed nor as guilty as the government alleged." Ha ha, Nation's very survival was uncertain, participants were soldiers for an ideology that necessitates the destruction of the revolution of 1776.

At least three Democrats have joined the ranks of Republicans planning to vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his refusal to turn over Operation Fast and Furious documents. The Democrats who have taken that stance so far are all conservative-leaning lawmakers facing perilous political circumstances in their home districts. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who is leading the charge on contempt, predicted to Fox News that up to 31 Democrats could be considering voting against Holder -- in reference to a letter signed by 31 Democrats last year expressing concern about Fast and Furious. Sources told Fox...

Did 1980s joystick deathgrip give you a claw hand? Forty years ago today, one of the most iconic names in computing was born: Atari. With just $500 between them, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari on June 26, 1972. Atari quickly became a successful computer games company: titles for Atari broke the one million units sold barrier and 10 years later Atari was making $2bn in annual sales. The company built the world's first popular home video game console, employed Apple founder Steve Jobs and put Pac-Man and Space Invaders into millions of living rooms. Atari succeeded at a...

June 27, 2012 Horrible, Awful News for Romney Katrina Trinko The pundits may as well declare this election over: Nearly two-thirds of Americans think Barack Obama would do better at handling an alien invasion than Mitt Romney, according to a poll commissioned by National Geographic. 

While publicly claiming neutrality between Argentina and the U.K. during the 1982 Falklands War, President Ronald Reagan’s administration had developed plans to loan a ship to the Royal Navy if it lost one of its aircraft carriers in the war, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, told the U.S. Naval Institute on June 26. Lehman and then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger agreed to support U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the loan of the amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima , he said.

Obama made a very serious mistake in invoking the issue of Executive Privilege in the F&F matter. First, he has now made Holder's problems his problem. Why would he do that unless there was some smoking gun memo that involved Obama personally? Is his ego so big that he thinks that simply his "presence" will remedy the situation. If so, I would remind him of how successful he was in bringing the Olympic Games to Chicago. But even if he prevails legally, which he probably will not, the public has already made up its mind. The concept is simple: Why...

Police claim that teacher Emmanuel Del Rosa, 27, “facilitated some students to carry out the hazing to limit behavioral problems within the classroom” during summer school at AB Miller High School in Fontana, California. Four students reportedly took part in the assault, authorities said in a statement. Police declined to release more details, citing the on-going investigation. Fernando Salgado, 18, is accused of attempted sodomy with a person under 18-years-old, rape, mayhem and child cruelty with the possibility of injury or death. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/students-teacher-arrested-alleged-hazing-incident-california-high-school-article-1.1101702#ixzz1z0tfRPmc

Below is the letter that House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sent to President Obama on Monday questioning the White House's use of executive privilege over subpoenaed documents related to Operation 'Fast and Furious.' Rep. Darrell Issa's Letter to President Obama

Here are some interesting liturgical rarities from Russian Orthodoxy, sent in by one of our readers many months ago. One in particular caught my attention. It is a recording from circa 1910 in Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Moscow, wherein Archdeacon Afanasii Zdihovsky sings Many Years to the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Imperial family: Many YearsIn another recording, we hear the same archdeacon singing "The Doors, The Doors" followed by the Creed: Creed

Just several weeks ago, a conglomerate of anti-Israel activists known as the "Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel" was "thrilled" when 23 Los Angeles area billboards featuring their message of, "Tell Congress: Spend our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli Military," pictured over the image of an American flag were erected. Just one week later, the billboard operator, CBS Outdoor, (a subsidiary of the CBS Corporation) removed the billboards on the grounds that the Stop $30 Billion to Israel organization had used the CBS name without permission in their organizational e-mails and in their petition thanking CBS for...

Already, there are a few democrat members of the House that have declared that they will be voting to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt. This on its face destroys the far-Left's assertions that the vote is strictly partisan. It is literally the opposite now: bi-partisan... Representative Jim Matheson of Utah has declared that he would vote Holder in contempt. Mr. Matheson also unequivocally voiced his distaste for the corruption the Obama Administration is fostering, saying, "Sadly, it seems that it will take holding the attorney general in contempt to communicate that evasiveness is unacceptable. It is a vote...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is ramping up a fresh phase of his re-election bid with a bus tour next week, focusing more on direct engagement with voters and less on ritzy fundraisers. Obama's two-day road trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio, two key battleground states in the November election, kicks off July 5, a campaign official said. It will be the president's first bus tour of the 2012 campaign.

U.S. authorities converged on a ship from India believed to have numerous stowaways from Pakistan in a container buried in the stacks of cargo aboard. As the ship docked at Port Newark in New Jersey after more than two weeks at sea, emergency medical teams, police and federal law enforcement stood by as customs officials checked each container and port equipment operators raced to dig out the one container where knocking believed to come from stowaways was heard. But by mid-morning no stowaways had been found in at least three containers that had been a focus of the search.

Bucks County teacher whose blog made headlines is fired By Bill Reed Inquirer Staff Writer The Bucks County high school teacher whose blog drew national attention for calling students "frightfully dim" and "utterly loathsome" was fired Tuesday for "unsatisfactory performance." Natalie Munroe, an 11th-grade English teacher at Central Bucks High School East for six years, was dismissed by a 7-0 vote of the school board. The board followed the administration's recommendation, based on a year of class observations and evaluations that Munroe's lawyer has called retaliatory. "Ms. Munroe was, at best, a satisfactory teacher and was experiencing performance difficulties well...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday accused President Obama of either obstructing a congressional investigation or of involvement in the "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking operation. In a seven-page letter to the president, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leveled his most direct allegations yet at Obama just two days ahead of a full House vote on whether to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena. Issa took issue with Obama’s assertion of executive privilege over a cache of documents at the Department of Justice — including a...

Under questioning by Senator Charles Grassley, Attorney General Eric Holder testified that a handful of emails written to Department of Justice officials by then ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson are being withheld illegally from congressional committees as a result of Barack Obama’s claim of executive privilege. Kept now under lock and key thanks to the June 20th order, the emails have been described by Melson as “smoking guns” in that–-contrary to Holder’s testimony to congress–-they “show senior DOJ officials knew about and approved the gun walking tactics in Fast and Furious.” (1) Fifteen months ago, Melson began his own investigation...

Russian strategic nuclear bombers threatened U.S. airspace near Alaska earlier this month and F-15 jets responded by intercepting the aircraft taking part in large-scale arctic war games, according to defense officials. The Russian war games began the same day President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a frosty summit meeting in Mexico June 18. U.S. officials said the arctic exercises over the Russian Far East and Pacific appeared to be a further sign of Russia’s hardening posture toward the United States. The Obama administration made no protest of the bomber intrusions, according to the officials, in line with its...

A federal court judge ordered the State of Michigan to continue deducting dues from Medicaid checks and send it to the Service Employees International Union, in direct conflict with a state law signed in April by Gov. Rick Snyder. If unchallenged, this would mean the so-called "home health care dues skim" would go on through February of next year. Judge Nancy G. Edmunds of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan handed down the order after a brief hearing in Detroit. The gist of Edmunds' ruling was that because Michigan's Employment Relations Commission recognized the forced unionization of tens of...

France Eyes Sale of Missiles for U.S.-Made F-16 Fighters -Report France's military procurement agency DGA is considering authorizing the sale by Sagem, a unit of French aerospace supplier Safran SA (SAF.FR), of its AASM air-to-ground missiles to equip the F-16 fighter made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) of the U.S., reports Les Echos, citing unnamed sources. It says the proposal is unlikely to please Dassault Aviation (AM.FR) which makes the Rafale multi-role combat aircraft that competes with the F-16. Sagem sells the AASM to foreign buyers in cooperation with MBDA, a missile maker whose shareholders include European Aeronautic Defence &...

Junior IT tech caused huge crash The Royal Bank of Scotland's outsourcing policy has been questioned after it was revealed that a junior technician in India caused a computer meltdown which froze millions of British bank accounts. Apparently an ‘inexperienced operative’ erased a massive swathe of information during a routine software upgrade for the Royal Bank of Scotland and its subsidiaries NatWest and Ulster Bank. The worker  was part of a team recruited in Hyderabad after the bank laid off more than 20,000 UK staff and outsourced work abroad. Now it seems that the deleted information had to be painstakingly...

Mitt Romney's support is up in Arizona following the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning several provisions of the state's law cracking down on illegal immigration and the Obama administration's announcement that it will not process additional illegals arrested there. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Arizona shows Romney with 54% support to President Obama's 41%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, while two percent (2%) remain undecided.

Did Justice Roberts trade votes with Justice Kennedy in the Arizona decision handed down Monday? I certainly hope so, for he would have struck a blow for constitutional conservatism. I will explain: Many Court observers have expressed surprise at Chief Justice Roberts joining the majority opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy, which struck down three of four provisions at issue with Arizona's S.B. 1070 and left the fourth on life support in terms of jurisprudence, and all but dead in terms of practice. As Justice Scalia noted in a dissent that was animated even by Scalia standards, the Supreme Court's decision...

President Obama has jumped the shark. The phrase “Jumping the Shark” dates back to 1977 when the cast of the popular television show Happy Days took a trip out to Los Angeles and The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, jumped over a shark cage while waterskiing. The original use indicated when a TV program had run out of creative and compelling storylines and began to utilize gimmicks to keep viewers interested such as trips to foreign countries, the introduction of new characters (particularly babies) or cameos by special guest stars. Over the last three decades the idiom has taken...

With the onset of the general election campaign, the liberals will, at the behest of Team Obama, will resort to their daily dose of “kool-aid”…err, I mean talking points. Time to debunk the myth – The Obama Administration put out a report in 2009 called The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. In it, the Obama Administration predicted that the stimulus package would keep unemployment under 8%.

This morning, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that the House of Representatives will proceed with a contempt of Congress vote tomorrow against Attorney General Eric Holder. Neither the announcement nor the expected outcome is a surprise. Republicans have the votes to make it happen and even some Democrats may support the charge that Mr. Holder's withholding of documents regarding the Fast and Furious gun smuggling operation rises to the level of contempt. But what is striking is that the words Speaker Boehner chose to summarize the situation are so applicable to so much about the Obama administration. "We're going to...

Let's take a moment off from baseless speculation over tomorrow's decision on ObamaCare for less-baseless speculation as to what comes afterward. What exactly are Barack Obama's contingency plans if the Supreme Court overturns ObamaCare, in whole or in part? On Monday, Marc Ambinder tweeted out this interesting update before it became apparent that the court would wait for Thursday to release its decision. According to Ambinder, the White House had a raft of executive orders at the ready: The WH has exec orders RTG if ACA is struck down. Their content and timing I donÂ’t know. But theyÂ’ve got contingency...