Free Republic

I hope if you've been paying attention these past few days, you're beginning to understand my position, and why I've been so forceful, consistent, and aggressive in my advocacy of it. Many of you already understood, but certainly there are many others who still need to figure it out. In just the last couple of days, Donald Trump has promised reprisals against his critics when he's elected president, pledging to "open up" libel laws so that he can punish anyone who writes "negative" or "false" stories about him. He said his critics "will have problems" when he's in power. Remember,...

As the Obamas begin their final year in the White House, a new movie debuting at the Sundance Film Festival aims to tell the First Family’s origin story, with a focus on their first date on the south side of Chicago. Richard Tanne, an actor and first-time feature director, conceived of the idea for Southside With You back during Barack Obama’s first campaign for president, when the then-senator from Illinois didn’t look much older than the 25-year-old who convinced Michelle Robinson to join him for a long afternoon in the summer of 1989 (watch an exclusive clip above). The years...

GOP front-runner leads cult of personality centered around white alienation, racial resentment and authoritarianism. Donald Trump is the front-runner in the 2016 Republican presidential primary race. He leads his closest rival, Ted Cruz, by a substantial margin. Trump’s proto-fascism, xenophobia and bigotry are not anomalies or outliers. These values are held by a large percentage of Republicans. Donald Trump validates these feelings. As such, it is now fundamentally clear that Donald Trump is a hero and leader for many conservatives in the Age of Obama. Most members of the pundit class have been befuddled by the ascendance of Donald Trump....

President Barack Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii, released a pre-Christmas statement yesterday, celebrating the fifth anniversary of his having signed legislation that allows openly homosexual, lesbian and bisexual individuals to serve in the U.S. military. "Today, Americans can serve the country they love no matter who they love, and openly gay, lesbian and bisexual men and women in uniform make our military stronger and America safer," said the president. ...

ednesday night's Republican presidential debate is on CNBC, whose business-minded moderators have asked questions to Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz challenging the wisdom of their approaches to the federal budget. Trump and Carson have proposed massive tax cuts that nonpartisan and even conservative analysts have said would raise the deficit by trillions of dollars. Cruz has famously pushed the U.S. to the brink of defaulting on its debt, which almost everyone—including the leaders of his own Republican Party—agrees would be a catastrophe. CNBC also asked Marco Rubio a pointed question about his frequent, well-documented absences from the Senate,...

Chucking a barf bag at a taxi driver has landed a Calgary woman in trouble with police. According to cops, a taxi picked the woman up on Aug. 23 in the area of 1 St. and 4 Ave. S.E. It was around 3:20 a.m. The woman upchucked inside the cab en route to a home in Sandstone. The driver offered the woman a bag, which she used. Police say the vomiting continued on the exterior of the cab when they reached her destination. When the driver requested a clean-up fee — city council last year approved a $100 levy to...

Today, comedian Rosie O’Donnell said “women’s rights“ are under attack in America and that politicians are undoing all the advances abortion activists have made. The Hill reports that O’Donnell told Jenny Hutt on SiriusXM’s radio program that she believes there is a war on women. She said, “Bigger than any specific people, there is a war on women that is happening in this country. Women fought for equality in this country, and right now, politically, it’s being taken away from us.”Then, unbelievably, O’Donnell said she would like to do this to pro-lifers: “I’d like to take my period blood I...

It's inevitable: At some point, teenage kids just aren't that into their parents anymore. Parent Barack Obama, who happens to be president, set out to combat that trend by hanging out with his teenage girls on a New York overnighter. The trio, plus some of the girls' friends, seemed intent on packing a lot into their 24 hours together in the city. But no one was out of the hotel door too early on a rainy Saturday morning after zigzagging around Manhattan in dad's motorcade into the wee hours on Friday night. They finally emerged about 11:30 a.m., as the...

A married Army general on Tuesday introduced his spouse at a Pentagon event that featured lots of top brass, including Defense Secretary Ashton Carter as the keynote speaker. What made this seemingly routine introduction noteworthy is that Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor introduced his husband, Lucas. “My husband Lucas is sitting up front here,” Gen. Taylor said of the man in the same row as Mr. Carter, Army Secretary John McHugh and other senior officials. He said Lucas has subjugated his own career to support the general’s frequent moves over an 18-year relationship.

"...The spot in front was appropriate for the new front-runner in Iowa, the state that in seven months holds the first nominating contest to pick the party's presidential candidate before the November 2016 election.Walker, who built his reputation by taking on labor unions, has led the five most recent polls in Iowa, including the respected Des Moines Register poll. The Register showed him with a seven-percentage point lead over four tightly bunched rivals and found he was viewed favorably by two-thirds of likely Iowa caucus-goers."If the caucuses were today, he would win. Unless he really screws up, he should win,"...

"Today, fewer than 10,000 troops remain on a mission to train and assist Afghan forces. We’ll continue to bring them home and reduce our forces further, down to an embassy presence by the end of next year," Obama said.

About six years ago, one of my producers at the Fox News Channel received a call out of the blue in which the caller asked if I'd be interested in coming on "The Colbert Report." At the time, I was generally unfamiliar with the genre of late-night comedy because I am usually in dreamland when it airs. Colbert was hilarious in his haughty imitation of the excesses of my Fox colleague Bill O'Reilly. I did not and do not know what his personal politics are, but his shtick was playing O'Reilly to a T. In fact, at one point during...

hether one observed Christmas or Hanukkah — or any other seasonal festivity — there was a nice little gift included for the drivers of this nation. Gasoline prices, in case anyone hasn't noticed, are down, way down. The average price of a gallon of unleaded in Maryland by Christmas week was in the neighborhood of $2.53, according to AAA, and there were some stations in the Baltimore area selling it for as little as $2.22. lRelated The cheap oil dividend One year ago, average gasoline prices were about $1 per gallon higher, which means a typical fill-up is saving drivers...

A network of businesses, public officials and educators are partnering with the Trayvon Martin Foundation to present “Letters to Trayvon” a holistic campaign to address the plight of Black males and police brutality, next February. The campaign, initiated by the Germantown-based small business Mission Inc., has been in its planning stages for about a year and will include a social media component, youth outreach and a culminating fundraising reception, panel discussion, black art showcase and exhibit on Feb. 28. “Letters to Trayvon is a campaign to end the disrespect and racial profiling of black men and boys [and] it’s a...

“No one knew that was me. Because a woman actually walked up to me, right? I was in the detergent aisle, and she said — I kid you not — she said, ‘Excuse me, I just have to ask you something.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, cover’s blown.’ She said, ‘Can you reach on that shelf and hand me the detergent?’ I kid you not. And the only thing she said — I reached up, because she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down. She said, ‘Well, you didn’t have to make it look so easy.’ That was my...

Back in 2005, Peggy Noonan wrote about the increasingly public friendship between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton: What bothers me about the fervid friendship of the Bushes and Mr. Clinton — and the media celebration of it — is the faint whiff of superiority, a sense they radiate that all those slightly icky little people running around wailing about issues — tax reform, the relation of the individual to the state, the necessary character of a president — and working the precincts are somehow . . . a little below them. There is an air of condescension...

[Barf Alert] Gender equality must guide 2015 climate deal, U.N. envoy says By Megan Rowling, Reuters LIMA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Gender equality must be a key part of a new global climate change deal due to be reached in Paris next year even though achieving it will be a struggle, U.N. climate envoy Mary Robinson said on Tuesday. The former Irish president said the 2015 agreement should drive climate policies that take both women's and men's needs into account and must include gender equality as a guiding principle. [excerpt. hurl here]

In order to justify the crush of medically unnecessary regulations on abortion clinics in recent years, it's become common for anti-choicers to pose as the protectors of women's health. Considering how much more dangerous childbirth is than abortion, this has always been a farcical claim, but now it appears some anti-choice activists are taking it a step further and actively encouraging women to take what could be a very serious risk to their health. Elizabeth Kulze at Vocativ reports that a crisis pregnancy center in Iowa (called the Women's Choice Center, one of the more obnoxious examples of anti-choice centers...

US Airways plane grounded by sick crew, passengers The Philadelphia-bound flight from Israel made an emergency landing in Rome after all 14 crew members, including four pilots, were affected by a mysterious smell. Vomiting crew members and passengers forced a Philadelphia-bound flight to make an emergency landing in Rome, airline officials said. The US Airways Flight US797 was en route from Israel when an odor in the cabin began to sicken the people aboard, NBC News reported. All 14 crew members, including the four pilots, were affected, and the mysterious smell made two passengers ill as well, an airline spokeswoman...

The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen. Southside With You, a drama in the vein of Before Sunrise, chronicles the summer 1989 afternoon when the future President of the United States of America wooed his future First Lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side. Get On Up’s Tika Sumpter will play Michelle Obama (née Robinson), while the search is on to cast the young Barack. As Presidential lore has it, the date took some convincing. Obama, then an idealistic first-year Harvard Law student, took a summer job as...