Free Republic

A year-end review of 2014's Bible and religious movie lineup. In the beginning…of 2014…was the promise of Bible movies. And was it good? As 2014 dawned, it looked like the year the Hollywood seas would part for Bible and religious movie offerings. Three Bible epics were in development for nationwide release by major studios: Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s “Son of God,” and Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” Moreover, none other than superstar Angelina Jolie was directing a biopic of an evangelical lion and war hero Louis Zamperini. A slew of smaller films aimed at the...

There's no sugarcoating it. The November 2014 election results marked a serious setback for Democrats, the anti-ultra right alliance and the broad people's coalition led by labor. The fight for jobs at living wages, workers and immigrant rights, racial and gender equality, for climate justice and peace proceeds under more unfavorable conditions. The election resulted in a wave of victories for the Republicans and ultra right that may have surpassed 2010. However, while the GOP claims otherwise, it was not a mandate for right-wing policies. Grassroots efforts by labor and its allies mobilized millions of voters. Tens of thousands of...

When Democrats rebounded after George W. Bush’s presidency, the reasons were obvious. Bush’s devastating and costly war begun under erroneous pretenses; the administration’s failures in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; the precipitous fall into the Great Recession; and a charismatic Barack Obama waiting in the wings. When Republicans rebounded with a big win last month after six years of a Democratic Senate and presidency, the reasons are not so plain to see. ******************************************************* It’s impossible to discount the role of the media in shaping the opinion of the electorate in any era. So when the media repeatedly cites anti-Obama sentiment...

In the days since Election Day, and during the coming weeks and months, the message from the White House has been and will be put forth endlessly as accepted wisdom, the lie repeated often enough until it becomes truth: that Americans voted for Congress and the White House to “work together.” That what they want is government action to solve their problems. This assertion, which is not just wrong but disprovable, serves the White House purpose of quieting conservatives who are willing to muck up business as usual in order to scuttle or at least make a vigorous point about...

Arizona's 2nd District: Challenger Martha McSally (GOP) clings to a 179 vote lead against Ron Barber, the incumbent, who is still finding missing votes. Louisiana's 5th District: Jamie Mayo, the only Democrat candidate with 28%, faces a Saturday runoff with Ralph Abraham, who garnered 23% against a crowded GOP field of six candidates.

* MailOnline exclusively obtained a draft copy of the legislation under consideration by conservatives in the House * It says 'no part of any appropriation,' including 'funds or fees collected' can be used by 'any agency to implement' Obama's immigration directives * House Republicans will discuss the legislation at a closed-door meeting tomorrow on Capitol Hill * The language could be part of a must-pass bill that would keep the government's doors open beyond next Thursday * The White House reiterated its preference today that Congress pass a yearlong appropriations billThe White House said on Monday that it would veto...

Sen. Mary Landrieu is relying on a close group of staunch Democratic supporters as she makes a final push to save her Senate seat from Republican challenger Rep. Bill Cassidy ahead of a Dec. 6 Louisiana runoff election. The momentum seems to favor Cassidy. The GOP quickly coalesced behind Cassidy after the general election in November in which Cassidy and Landrieu received the most votes, but neither won enough to avoid a runoff. Cassidy has received a fresh round of endorsements from big-name 2016 contenders, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ken., and Texas Gov. Rick Perry....

No, red state women didn't save the party. But Ebola was a phony GOP-made crisis and Dems shouldn't have cowered. Thanksgiving is a great time for writers to reckon with whatever we got wrong over the year – and to be grateful that in this day and age we get to write every day, and put mistakes behind us quickly. So with the 2014 midterm election rapidly disappearing in the rearview mirror, I thought I’d reckon with my one big political mistake this past election cycle, as well as one big thing I got, sadly, right. In July 2013, long...

By the time this piece goes to press, America, for better or worse, will have a newly elected majority of Republicans sitting in the US Senate. Or at least that’s what the smart money, the boys in the back room say about how this 2014 off-year election will go down. So how do they know? Well there are several touchstones to tell us. Litmus paper tests to tell which way the wind will blow, you know? Polls they’re called. The public will. The voters’ choice. And why not? Ain’t that what democracy’s all about? Before the election, pollsters gather information...

Rep. Jim Costa was thought to be headed for a safe race. The California Democrat represents a district that supported President Obama by a 19-point margin in 2012—and while Costa had had scares in previous midterms, 2014 appeared to be in the bag. And indeed, Costa did keep his seat, but only after squeaking through one of the tightest races of the entire cycle, a vote count so close that it took 15 days for him to be officially declared the victor over Republican candidate and dairy farmer Johnny Tacherra. So what happened? Costa nearly fell victim to a radically...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKLy-IcdH7cTRANSCRIPT: I’m Andrew Klavan and this is the Revolting Truth. The political landscape has changed and now that some time has passed, let’s try to get at the deeper meaning of the midterm elections. In the final results, Republicans won eleventy hundred Senate seats out of a possible thirty-three, and approximately a gazillion governorships including four in the seven states that only exist in Barack Obama’s imagination. I know many of you untrained amateur political hobbyists out there may feel this means that voters have repudiated the Obama presidency... and then thrown it to the ground and stomped on it......

Maybe the best way to fight the Obama power grab is to show how it opens up the floodgates. So maybe all the GOP candidates should now start talking about what executive orders they would impose. After all, if we establish the precedent that the POTUS can flout the will of Congress by using EO's, then we would naturally start expecting presidents to use that to pursue their agenda, and we would want to know in advance for which issues they would likely consider using that new found power. So let's put that out there! If this precedent gets established,...

The biggest mystery that never unraveled in Florida Election 2014 has to be super-uber trial attorney Steve Mostyn. Why would a Houston multimillionaire with no current business in the Sunshine State out-donate billionaire George Soros, giving it to Democrat Charlie Crist's Florida gubernatorial campaign and the Florida Democratic Party? We never did get to the bottom of it. Crist and Mostyn didn't really know each other before the campaign. What did Mostyn want? Soros, founder of the far-left Open Society Institute, who advocates bringing European social democracy to the United States, only gave Crist a smidgen over $1 million. But...

Former Sen. Bob Bennett says even though Republicans are set to take over Congress come January, don't expect Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to set the agenda. Bennett, speaking at a conference in Washington, says Sen. Mitch McConnell, who will be majority leader in the next Congress, has done a masterful job of "isolating" Ted Cruz. "There is no cannier politician in Washington than Mitch McConnell," said Bennett. "Yes, Ted Cruz is an unsettling factor within the Republican conference. My sense of things is Mitch has very carefully, very methodically, very much under the radar isolated Ted Cruz. He's...

Were the polls wrong? It’s a question asked after every election. Sometimes, as in 1948, the answer seems as obvious as the answer to the question, “Why did Custer lose at Little Bighorn?” Sometimes the answer is less obvious, as it is this year. “The polls were skewed toward the Democrats,” writes Nate Silver, who as proprietor of FiveThirtyEight has earned the distinction of being the nation’s most assiduous polling analyst. Silver gives short shrift to partisans — Democrats this year, Republicans in 2012 — who complained that polls were systematically biased against their side. The skew varies unpredictably, he...

ANCHORAGE — First-term Democratic Sen. Mark Begich has conceded his race against Republican challenger Dan Sullivan, the former Alaska natural resources commissioner who has led in his first run at elected office since Election Day on Nov. 4. According to a Division of Elections update Monday afternoon, Begich trailed Sullivan by more than 6,200 votes, about 2.2 percent. Spokespersons for the Begich campaign had said repeatedly since Election Day that every vote deserved to be counted and hinted that uncounted votes from rural Alaska might put Begich ahead. The Associated Press called the election for Sullivan on Nov. 11. Nearly...

Former President Bill Clinton said Saturday that Democrats lacked a "national advertising campaign" in the recent midterm elections and that he's surprised many Senate races were not closer. Clinton said in an interview with Politico that Republicans were helped by a larger bloc of voters who felt more strongly about the elections than members of his party. Democrats could have benefited from a national message that reinforced the party's positions on refinancing student loans and promoting equal pay for women, he said. "The people who were against us felt more strongly than the people who were for us. The people...

It has not escaped the notice of political analysts that 72 percent of whites without college degrees — a rough proxy for what we used to call the white working class — believe that “the U.S. economic system generally favors the wealthy.” Or that on Nov. 4, these same men and women voted for Republican House candidates 64-34. Similarly, the overwhelmingly white electorates of Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota voted decisively in referendums to raise the minimum wage while simultaneously voting for Republicans, whose party has adamantly rejected legislation to raise the minimum wage. There is an ongoing debate...

Republican Sen.-elect Joni Ernst easily won her race in Iowa last Tuesday, beating Democrat Bruce Braley by 8.5 percentage points. Her victory wasn’t shocking, but its size was (to everyone except pollster Ann Selzer, that is). The final FiveThirtyEight projection had Ernst winning by just 1.5 percentage points. What the heck happened? Here’s one explanation: White voters in Iowa without a college degree have shifted away from the Democratic Party. And if that shift persists, it could have a big effect on the presidential race in 2016, altering the White House math by eliminating the Democratic edge in the electoral...

THR pays tribute to Hollywood figures who died this year. Slideshow at link. We lost a lot of old-time stars this year, and some I hadn't heard about...................