Free Republic

A California court of appeals said it had no choice but to overturn the conviction of a rapist who entered a sleeping woman’s bedroom and posed as her boyfriend before having sex with her because the woman is not married. Morales was originally found guilty of the rape of an unconscious personbut then his conviction was overturned because of an 1972 (sic)law that required the woman to be married for the conviction to hold. A California appeals court has overturned the rape conviction of a man because the female victim in the crime was not married at the time of...

Xiao Feng, 23, is pretty good at his favourite online video game, so he was surprised when he suddenly started getting killed again and again like a rookie. Turns out the high-level characters that kept taking him out were actually hitmen hired by his father.

Sean Hannity continued the national debate over gun rights tonight with a particular focus on the New York newspaper that published the names and addresses of every gun owner in multiple counties. Guest Leo Terrell was particularly fired up on the issue, and when it looked like he was about to really rage at Hannity, he simply covered his ears with his hands to avoid listening.

By DYLAN BYERS | 1/2/13 12:04 PM EST   Number of mentions of the term "gun control" in the news, according to Nexis.On the day of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., we published a chart showing the Sisyphean nature of the national gun control discussion. In the immediate aftermath of a shooting, such as the one that took place in Aurora, Colo., mentions of the term "gun control" spike in the news media. In a matter of days, that discussion all but disappears.This time was supposed to be different. "It is hard to believe this will...

Six months ago, Thor, a German shepherd mix, was enduring a painful life of abuse. On Thursday, he was flying home in first class courtesy of Alaska Airlines following specialized surgery on his jaw which took place in California. Life has changed greatly for the young dog.

A Trenton man conspired with the New York City police officer who has been dubbed the "cannibal cop" to kidnap a Manhattan woman and bring her to New Jersey so he could rape and kill her, federal prosecutors said today. Michael Vanhise, 22, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, the FBI and the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a press release. Vanhise exchanged emails with New York City police officer Gilberto Valle,...

Anyone familiar with an accurate telling of the political truths leading up to the events of mid-April, 1775 in small towns and villages west of Boston knows that while the Colonials and their British masters were at loggerheads for the better part of a decade over a number of issues including taxation and liberty, the immediate and proximate trigger of the first American Revolutionary war was an attempt by General Thomas Gage to disarm the Colonists. Yes, the American Revolution was triggered by a gun control raid that was met with force by the American people.

Alaskan liberty goes up in smoke under new air regulationsNot-so-unintended consequences of overregulation are in the air. Newly adopted rules limiting airborne soot imposed by bureaucrats in Washington threaten to freeze the choices — and toes — of individuals living more than 4,000 miles away in subarctic Alaska. Thanks to authoritarian overreach, the freedom of America’s “last frontier” may not last much longer. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waited until after President Obama’s re-election to announce drastic new restrictions on soot produced by industry smokestacks, diesel trucks and even ordinary sources like wood-burning stoves. The new standard for the great...

Do you believe the 113th Congress will accomplish more than the 112th Congress? Yes No

What if the threat of a voluntary default by the United States could be erased by simply turning one tiny scrap of platinum into a coin? That's right. No debt ceiling problem. No bickering in Congress. No market jitters. The only thing needed is for the Treasury Department to mint a platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion. ---- If Congress does not act to raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. will default on its debts. Not good. But this is where the platinum coin comes in. Normally, the Federal Reserve is charged with issuing currency. But U.S....

Weird magic act..... http://elrellano.com/videos_online/4624/circo-roncalli.html

These days, if you Google “Storage Wars,” likely two things will come up. First, is the fact that yet another version of the ever-popular A&E reality show is set to launch in January – Storage Wars: New York – and, second, that one of the original cast members, David Hester, recently claimed in a lawsuit that “nearly every aspect of the show is faked.” The latter has somewhat overshadowed the former in terms of publicity, and yet, based on the continued popularity of the series, there’s little doubt Storage Wars: New York will be a success, because if there’s anything...

Explanation: Tycho crater's central peak complex casts a long, dark shadow near local sunrise in this spectacular lunarscape. The dramatic oblique view was recorded on June 10, 2011 by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Shown in amazing detail, boulder strewn slopes and jagged shadows appear in the highest resolution version at 1.5 meters per pixel. The rugged complex is about 15 kilometers wide, formed in uplift by the giant impact that created the well-known ray crater 100 million years ago. The summit of its central peak reaches 2 kilometers above the Tycho crater floor.

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The release of a conveniently long-lost report showing that fracking is safe puts New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo in a tight spot: continue to appease environmentalists by delaying further the development of the rich Marcellus Formation under his state, or letting the free market extract those resources and generate thousands of jobs and millions in revenue to the state. Fracking Is OK, Says Buried Report From New York State's Health Department The New American 04 January 2013 A report favoring fracking that was buried for nearly a year was given to the New York Times yesterday by a...

A photo of the 61 female members of Congress including the photo-shopped images of four absentees was defended by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) who says that the altered image “more accurately portrayed reality than the unaltered actual photo.” “Sometimes what you see isn't as true as what you should see,” Pelosi explained. “Since we now have the technology to seamlessly correct the official record it would be foolish for us not to use it.” The Minority Leader brushed aside criticisms that altering official history in this manner recalls a practice used by the former Soviet Union. “Just because...

New Delhi - Its healthcare system crippled by international economic sanctions, Iran has asked India for help to procure life-saving drugs for patients battling critical illnesses in that country. Tehran has put in an urgent request to New Delhi for drugs to treat lung and breast cancers; brain tumours; heart ailments; infections after kidney, heart and pancreas transplants; meningitis in HIV patients; arthritis; bronchitis and respiratory distress in newborns; and epilepsy, South Block sources told The Indian Express. On December 27, the sources said, the government forwarded the request for 28 essential medicines to Indian pharmaceutical companies. The required quantities...

Muslims discovered the Americas long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, the head of a D.C.-based jihad-linked Islamic lobbying group told a Saudi TV station Dec. 27. “There are historical accounts according to which the Muslims preceded Columbus, who is said to have discovered the U.S.,” claimed Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations. … CAIR did not respond to The Daily Caller’s request for an explanation of Awad’s comments, which were recorded by the Middle East Media Research Institute. …

A French magazine, which sparked international protests and saw its offices firebombed after it printed cartoons mocking Muhammad, on Wednesday published a "halal" cartoon biography of Islam's founder. The editor of Charlie Hebdo weekly insists that "The Life of Mohammed", whose cover shows a goofy-looking prophet leading a camel through the desert, is an educational work prepared by a Franco-Tunisian sociologist. "It is a biography authorised by Islam since it was edited by Muslims," said Stéphane Charbonnier, who was also the illustrator of the book which comes complete with academic footnotes. "I don't think higher Muslim minds could find anything...

The oldest Swiss bank, Wegelin & Co., is wrapping up an existence that has spanned more than 270 years after pleading guilty in a US case involving Americans who hid funds in secret accounts abroad. UBS 'ordered' to give out data in US tax probe (10 Feb 12) Swiss banker quits paper amid US tax dispute (09 Feb 12) Oldest Swiss bank sold amid US tax dispute (27 Jan 12) Wegelin, which was founded in 1741 and based in St. Gallen, eastern Switzerland, unveiled late on Thursday an agreement with US federal prosecutors in New York that includes penalties worth...

A court in Antwerp, Belgium has ordered a Jewish Orthodox school for girls to admit the sons of an Orthodox Jewish man who is radically anti-Zionist. The Belgian judge gave the “Bnos Yerushalayim” school five days to admit Moshe Aryeh Friedman’s two sons, 11-year-old Yaakov and seven-year-old Yosef, reports Ynet, a popular Israeli news website. The school, which is expected to appeal the ruling, had argued that Orthodox Judaism requires boys and girls to be educated separately. It also noted that the building has no restrooms for males. The judge discounted these objections. If the school doesn’t comply, it will...

French cinema legend Brigitte Bardot on Friday threatened to follow Gérard Depardieu to Russia unless two elephants under threat of being put down are granted a reprieve. Depardieu the Russian praises 'democracy' (04 Jan 13) Putin makes Depardieu Russian citizen (03 Jan 13) Bardot leaps to Depardieu's defence (19 Dec 12) In a surreal twist to the saga over Depardieu's move into tax exile, the veteran animal rights campaigner said she would emulate his request for Russian nationality unless authorities intervened to save Baby and Nepal. The two elephants face being put down because they have been diagnosed with tuberculosis...

In case you missed it, Alan Grayson is back in Congress. Yes, the same Alan Grayson who called his 2010 congressional opponent Dan Webster (who he lost to) "Taliban Dan" and the same guy who said Republicans want people to "die quickly" on the House floor in 2009. In November, Grayson regained his position in Congress due to redistricting. Yesterday, just hours after the 113th Congress officially started, Grayson was on MSNBC accusing Republicans of legislative terrorism because you know, new tone or something.  "Well, they say it's a device for them to extract concessions that they have otherwise be...

It is tempting for people who earn less than $400,000 to think that they got off easy this week under the tax deal to end the fiscal impasse, given that only those with incomes above that level will be in a higher income tax bracket in 2013. But the legislation that both houses of Congress have now approved could increase taxes on people with incomes that are not quite that high as well. That’s because the bill includes language that begins to do what both President Obama and Mitt Romney proposed at various points in the past: Limit certain tax...

The first juvenile mass-murder happened for the FIRST TIME in recorded human history in the late 1970s, in California. In 500 years of gun-powder combat, not once had a juvenile committed multiple homicide. We had a couple in the 1980s, and now it's out of control. So what happened? It's Pavlog Dog, said Lt. Col. Lt. Col. Grossman: our youth is being conditioned from childhood by videogames to be "First-Person Shooters, (FPS) and to associate killing, human death and suffering with reward and pleasure. Videogames are not "games"; they are mass-murder simulators, Grossman says. Our kids are being wired...

Apostrophe

A German minister is calling for children to be given the vote, it was reported on Thursday. He said that excluding the country's 13 million under-18s was "absurd", triggering a backlash from other politicians. Dirk Niebel, Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), "We must give children a voice - in elections as well." The current age limit on voting in Germany is 18 which, he said, was "completely inappropriate" although he was not specific about when he wanted children to be given suffrage. On a practical level, the Free Democrat (FDP) politician said that...

German police who last year solved a murder case from 43 years ago, using modern DNA analysis found that the culprit died of natural causes - just months after giving them the crucial evidence. The 1970 case of a woman found murdered a few metres from her parents' home in Flensburg in Schleswig Holstein had mystified police for decades, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Friday. Now, with the help of modern techniques, police said they had identified the culprit almost exactly 43 years to the day after the 20-year-old victim was found in a wood alongside a rail goods...

Top Swedish politicians and Raoul Wallenberg's own sister on Thursday introduced an official memorial day for the "great Swede", who saved 100,000 people from the Holocaust in Budapest during World War 2, citing the need to fight today's anti-Semitism and its modern "anti-Islam kin". 'Give Wallenberg an annual day': minister (4 Aug 12) Wallenberg death still 'shrouded in mystery' (3 Aug 12) Obama honours Raoul Wallenberg's legacy (20 Apr 12) In an opinion article published on Friday in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper, Wallenberg's sister Nina Lagergren, Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, and United Nation's Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson lead...

New U.S. Rep. Scott Perry went to Washington saying he wanted to hold the line on government spending, even when it wasn't popular. On his second day in office, Perry proved he wasn't just talking. He voted against a $9.7 billion bill to pay flood insurance claims for the many home and business owners flooded out by Superstorm Sandy. Perry was one of 67 House members to vote against the bill. When a broader relief measure failed to pass he House in the closing days the last session, Northeastern politicians on both sides of the aisle blasted the delay, most...

Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn has officially re-introduced legislation to de-fund abortion giant Planned Parenthood. With Mike Pence now in Indiana, Blackburn is heading up the effort on the Capitol Hill to protect the unborn. Blackburn informed LifeNews today that she has introduced the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act (H.R. 61), which would stop the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from providing federal family planning assistance under Title X to abortion businesses until they certify they won’t provide and refer for abortions. The reintroduction of this legislation in the 113th Congress is similar to legislation Pence introduced in...

I have previously written here and here about appropriate tactics for patriots to take (including Christian patriots) when we come to the realization that the current government of our land is tyrannical, and moving in the direction of further, more intensive despotism. I’d like to add another tactic to that list today; and, that tactic is deception. I realize that as soon as I suggest that deception is an appropriate tool for the opposition of tyrants, I’m going to lose some of my fellow Christians. However, I beg a patient audience, as I will later try to show that the...

James Carville: Hillary Clinton haters ‘inhumane’ By: Kevin Cirilli January 4, 2013 05:57 PM EST James Carville slammed the “inhumane, idiotic” critics who questioned the legitimacy of Hillary Clinton’s recent head injury and said it was “duly noted” inside Clinton-land. “What kind of human being is going to think like that with everything going on with concussions, head injuries? The fact the woman was dehydrated from the fact that she’d been overseas so much — I just don’t know, and some of these people I know and I get along with,” Carville said Friday in a CNN interview. The former...

Two weeks ago, when we commented on the biggest farce in financial thinking at the time (promptly replaced by the even more lunatic platinum coin "idea"), namely that one of the main "spending cut" proposals of the Obama administration, amounting to $290 billion, was the assertion that the US will save hundreds of billions because, get this, interest rates are now lower than they were before. We commented as follows:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. That statement, from NRA president Wayne LaPierre, was immediately turned into a laugh line by the press, deemed everything from “deadly spin” to “delusional” to “paranoid.” The New York Daily News proclaimed that anti-gun cranks—oops, I mean “mental health experts”—who had never met LaPierre had diagnosed him as crazy. As someone who went to journalism school and has worked in media for years, I’m used to this. Left-leaning editors and reporters declare what “everyone” knows and “everyone” thinks, while pretending to be...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly jobs report. Now for the BLS Boogie. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 155,000 workers last month following a revised 161,000 advance in November that was greater than initially estimated. The unemployment rate printed at 7.8% which is up from 7.7% in November but the same as the UPWARDLY REVISED print of 7.8%. U6 partial unemployment printed at 14.4%. Labor force participation remained at 63.6%. And the civilian employment to population ratio fell to 58.6, still stuck are 1983 levels. That’s a lot of people for the 58.6% to support! The number of...

The Venezuelan Minister of Correctional Services, Iris Varela, has announced on her Twitter account the expulsion of a French citizen known as Frédéric Laurent Bouquet, December 29, 2012 Mr. Bouquet (photo) had been arrested in Caracas on June 18, 2009, with three Dominican nationals in possession of an arsenal. In the apartment he had acquired, forensic police seized 500 grams of C4 explosives, 14 assault rifles including 5 with telescopic lenses, 5 with laser sighting and one with a silencer, special cables, 11 electronic detonators, 19,721 cartridges of different calibers, 3 machine guns, 4 hand guns of different calibers, 11...

This nightmare thought woke me in the wee hours the other night .... Can you imagine if a certain someone staged a certain attempted act on himself (or on one of his cronies, willingly or not)? The act would be staged to be unsuccessful -- perhaps a close call -- and he would use it as his clarion call to carry out a certain action on his agenda.Even more: imagine if he staged it to coincide with the annual Right-to-Life march, to pin it on pro-lifers -- to proverbially "kill two birds with one stone." And his lapdog leftist media...

Random thought of the day...or maybe not given all the fiscal cliff nonsense.

Mirna Valenzuela took a trip to Tucson, Arizona’s Casino del Sol Resort with her daughter Zamira Osorio, and hit a $1200 jackpot win. But the lucky win turned unlucky very quickly when events led to Valenzuela’s deportation to Mexico. Federal law requires that winners of $1200 or more show identification for tax purposes.

This doesn't quite qualify as breaking news for those who tracked the extraordinary labyrinth of intelligence that emerged in the days following the 2011 Abbottabad raid, but the subject of US interrogation policy is again generating controversy in advance of the release of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' a film that dramatizes the bin Laden mission.  Writing in today's Washington Post, a former top CIA counter-terrorism officer sets the record straight on what measures were, and were not, employed to help bring down the world's most infamous terrorist.  Jose Rodriguez -- who made headlines last year when his book exposed Nancy Pelosi's...

A convicted serial killer currently on death row killed O.J. Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, a new documentary claims. "My Brother the Serial Killer" claims Glen Rogers was behind the 1994 murders that made nationwide headlines. The documentary, which airs Nov. 21 on Investigation Discovery, includes a candid interview with Rogers' brother, Clay. "I'm absolutely certain that my brother killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman," Clay Rogers told the filmmakers. Glen Rogers was arrested six weeks after Simpson, the famous football player and Brown's ex-husband, was acquitted of the murders. Police claimed Rogers went on...

At last, here’s the sort of friend Facebook needs. George Soros, the legendary investor, has revealed he spent around $10.6m buying 341,000 shares in the social networking site in the second quarter. The new investment by the billionaire, which was revealed in a regulatory filing by Soros Fund Management for his holdings at the end of June, is contrary to move of other investors who have been rapidly “defriending” Facebook ever since it listed in May. Shares in Facebook, which was one of the biggest listing in history and one of the worst performing, have plunged by almost 50pc from...

The intentions of the Journal News’ editorial board in publishing a highly controversial “interactive gun map” are further occluded by an inconvenient fact. According to Rockland County Clerk Paul Piperato, in Rockland County a large number of the names and addresses on the map are not even correct. Piperato said, “I’d figure about 25 percent of the addresses are not accurate.” He explained that when persons change their address or pass away it is supposed to be reported to the County Clerk’s office, but the county has no means to vigorously enforce this regulation. Thus pistol permit and other permit...

Racism: The once-proud NAACP has dissed a new African-American Republican senator as a token who knows nothing about civil rights because, well, he's a Republican — unlike, say, Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act. NAACP President Ben Jealous made the claim Wednesday concerning Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. — the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction and the first black GOP senator since 1979, when Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts retired. Indeed, Scott is only the seventh African-American ever to serve in the chamber. Jealous based his claim on Scott receiving an "F" on an NAACP scorecard of...

Lawmakers in Connecticut – still stunned from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting – are moving forward with legislation that could make public the names and addresses of 170,000 handgun permit holders in the state. The measure, introduced by state Rep. Stephen Dargan, is the latest effort to clamp down on guns in Connecticut. If passed, the bill would reverse a 20-year decision by state lawmakers to keep the personal information confidential. The legislation would make the information fair game under the state’s Freedom of Information Act. Dargan told FoxNews.com on Friday the measure was not intended to pit gun...

The FBI has released its files on the late "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace, detailing their scrutiny of a 1970 trip Wallace took to Cuba. There is also an investigation of a threatening letter sent to Wallace in 1977 by a World War II veteran titled "Communist Control of the Press." The files were dug up from the bureau's records vault and were requested via the Freedom of Information Act. Read the documents here. Wallace died on April 7, 2012, at the age of 93 and was widely recognized for his aggressive style in television interviews. In the summer of...

For the con man to get you to willingly hand over your possessions he must deceive your heart and mind that he cares about you. The success of the con man is sealed when the victim thanks him for taking advantage of them. Exactly what happened when the people reelected Barack Obama. Not only did the masses reward him with another four years to plunder their possessions they now thank him with a 56% job approval rating. How could Obama succeed in such a grand deception? The steady and methodical manipulation of reality. In 2008 Obama convinced a war weary...