Free Republic

On Monday, presidential hopeful Rand Paul had this to say to a group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn: "All the way back to the Iraq War, I think it was a mistake to topple [Saddam] Hussein." The Kentucky senator continued: Hussein was the bulwark against Iran. The Sunnis didn't like the Shiites, now Iraq is a vassal state for Iran. I'm worried [Iran] is twice as strong as it was before the Iraq War. [Rand Paul] I'm no dove. But I must admit: Rand Paul has a point.

Two teen car burglars were arrested this weekend after shooting David Pence and his son Nicholas at their home. The two black teens invaded the Pence home after a dinner party on Wednesday night.The father and son were shot dead in an execution-style murder moments after party guests left their home.

The State Department on Monday would not rule out giving Iran up to $50 billion as a so-called "signing bonus" for agreeing to a nuclear deal later this year, according to comments made to journalists following reports that the Obama administration had formulated a plan to release tens of billions of frozen Iranian funds. Experts have said this multi-billion dollar "signing bonus" option, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, could be the largest cash infusion to a terror-backing regime in recent memory. A cash release of $30 to $50 billion upon reaching a final nuclear agreement would...

A North Carolina man’s obituary asked two things of friends and family: instead of sending flowers for the funeral, give the money to charity. And don’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Loretta Lynch has found an unlikely ally — Jeb Bush. The Brooklyn US attorney, whose attorney general nomination has been stalled for months in the Republican-controlled Senate, is getting a helping hand from the former Florida governor and probable GOP presidential candidate. “I think that presidents have the right to pick their team,” Bush said while campaigning in New Hampshire Thursday.

APRIL 17---A drunken argument over whether Android or Apple smartphones were superior turned violent early today when two Oklahoma roommates began assaulting each other during the bloody telecommunications debate. According to Tulsa police, Jiaro Mendez and Elias Acevedo were outside their apartment around 1 AM when their phone quarrel moved to the stabbing stage. As they tussled in a parking lot, Acevedo allegedly struck Mendez in the back of the head with a beer bottle. When cops subsequently apprehended Acevedo, he was “covered in blood” and “also had several lacerations on his body from the fight.” Both men were treated...

It's one thing for Hillary Clinton to lift Granny Warren's applause lines, but now she's speaking with a forked tongue about her grandparents, just like the fake Indian does. You know how Fauxcahontas says she's an Indian because her grandma told her she had "high cheekbones"? And how her parents had to elope because her paternal grandparents were angry that their son was marrying a "breed"? (Funny, the newlyweds had a big wedding party in their hometown right after they got married in the biggest church in the next town over.) Now Hillary is out in Iowa making it up...

Who says Islam is not adapting to the times? Fatwas issued by top clerics in Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week might be shocking to much of the civilized world, but they do indicate change. In Turkey, the top religious authority, known as the Directorate of Religious Affairs or Divanet, proclaimed that though water is the preferred method of cleansing oneself after using the toilet, paper is now an acceptable alternative if a water source is unavailable, reports the nation’s Hurriyet Daily News. [Snip] Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia the grand mufti has reportedly found a new definition of halal –...

Just when you thought you’d heard it all: A report circulating throughout the Arabic-language media claims a leading Saudi cleric has issued a fatwa (religious ruling) permitting husbands to eat their wives (yes, eat them) in the event that they are really, really hungry. The report appeared among other places in the major pan-Arab, London-based Al Quds Al-Arabi, which cited the alleged edict by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah Al-Asheikh permitting a husband to eat his wife if he is afflicted with “severe hunger”. It claimed Al-Asheikh clarified that the husband could choose to eat...

Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has issued a fatwa allowing a starving man to eat his wife in order to save himself, causing a stir among the Kingdom's residents, London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi reported. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, according to the report, said that the act would display the wife's obedience to her husband and her willingness to become one with his flesh. Saudi Twitter users quickly took to the social network to express their shock at the strange fatwa attributed to the Grand Mufti. Following the report Saudi media accused Iranian media of fabricating the fatwa, noting...

We apologise for this aneurysm inducing news, but seriously a Mufti in Saudi Arabia has just declared that a Muslim can cannibalise his wife. You heard correctly: Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, a man of religious power in Saudi Arabia, believes it is halal to eat your wife. Clarifying his stance, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah explains that literally eating your wife is permitted only if you're extremely hungry. Translating what appeared on multiple Arab websites (here, here, here, here and here): “A fatwa attributed to the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, which allows a man to eat his...

MOSCOW -- For three straight days last weekend, the employees of the Novaya Buryatia newspaper in southern Siberia used scissors to remove an article from 50,000 copies of the weekly before it could be distributed. The same article, which had been posted a few days earlier on the paper's website, was pulled down. (It can be seen in an archived file here.) As a result, an article that was intended to clear up some mysteries involving alleged Russian military participation in the fighting in eastern Ukraine has itself become the center of a mystery: Is this a case of Soviet-style...

The media is attacking Rand Paul for not giving them what they want on abortion details. Paul told the AP in an interview that he was pro-life, but that wasn’t good enough for them. They wanted to know if he thought there should be exceptions to his pro-life stance, but he wouldn’t go there because he doesn’t believe in framing the abortion debate the way the media wants to frame it. Watch: Later today a reporter asked Paul about it again, on behalf of the DNC, and Paul schooled him (cued to begin at 8 minute mark):

Williams was suspended from NBC in February after it emerged he'd lied about being in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq in 2003 A new report in Vanity Fair claims Williams lied because he felt insecure taking over from beloved anchor Tom Brokaw at the Nightly News While some execs saw his lying as 'quirks' of his personality, the tales left Brokaw 'incensed' and he ultimately didn't support Williams in February After he was accused of lying, Williams wondered if he had a brain tumor But other NBC employees said Williams had always been out of his depth...

It is difficult to define a whole school of political ideology precisely, but one may reasonably define liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) in the contemporary United States as the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others. In the modern political and economic context, this willingness usually translates into paying higher proportions of individual incomes in taxes toward the government and its social welfare programs. Liberals usually support such social welfare programs and higher taxes to finance them, and conservatives usually oppose them....

Two women in New York City have been arrested over their ties to the ISIL terrorist group and allegedly planning to carry out a "terrorist attack" in the United States, federal prosecutors say. Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, plotted to hit government, police or military targets, according to the complaint filed Thursday at a US federal court in Brooklyn. The complaint said Velentzas and Siddiqui had praised the al-Qaeda terrorist group and were "citizens” of ISIL. "We are committed to doing everything in our ability to detect, disrupt and deter attacks by homegrown violent extremists," Brooklyn US Attorney...

It might sound like a really old wives' tale, but a thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon potion for eye infections may hold the key to wiping out the modern-day superbug MRSA, according to new research. The 10th-century "eyesalve" remedy was discovered at the British Library in a leather-bound volume of Bald's Leechbook, widely considered to be one of the earliest known medical textbooks. Christina Lee, an expert on Anglo-Saxon society from the School of English at the University of Nottingham, translated the ancient manuscript despite some ambiguities in the text. "We chose this recipe in Bald's Leechbook because it contains ingredients such as...

An economist at the U.S. Department of Labor quickly put her gears in reverse after sending out a tweet comparing Christians to Nazis. Elizabeth Ashack deleted her tweet that read “people in the red states vote for nazis to govern, and then call themselves Christian, it will not end well for them. #BoycottIndiana,” but not before screenshots were taken by several astute Twitter users. Ashack, an employee of the department since 1998, according to the Daily Caller, also removed “Economist at US Department of Labor BLS” from her Twitter profile after people began calling her out for the remark. That...

Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes. Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that." View the video here.

CAIRO — The Arab states said on Sunday that they had agreed to form a combined military force to counter both Iranian influence and Islamist extremism, a gesture many analysts attributed in large part to their drive for more independence from Washington. The agreement came as American and other Western diplomats in Lausanne, Switzerland, were racing to beat a self-imposed deadline of Tuesday to reach a deal with Iran that would restrict its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of economic sanctions. In response, Saudi Arabia and other American allies in the region have made clear that they are...