Free Republic

The U.S. death rate has been falling for decades, but researchers have detected one group in which the rates have been steadily ticking up - middle-aged white people. Suicides and deaths from drug overdose and alcohol abuse are being blamed. Deaths rates for other races have continued to fall, as they have for whites 65 and older. But death rates for whites 35 to 44 have been level recently, they’re beginning to turn up for whites 55 to 64, and - most strikingly - death rates for whites ages 45 to 54 have risen by half a percent per year...

Tom Tancredo has long been a Conservative stalwart, with a lifetime rate of 99% per the American Conservative Union for his 10 years in office. He writes over at Breitbart that he is leaving the GOP In a panel discussion at the University of Colorado after the recent Republican debate, I was asked by a student why she should be a Republican. The question forced me to ask myself the same thing.I gave the young woman the standard talking points–that Republicans believe in smaller government, individual rights, fiscal responsibility, and free enterprise. But as I drove home, her question–and my...

After this weeks House GOP budget deal, which betrays nearly every promise made to grassroots conservatives since 2010, I have decided it is time to end my affiliation with the Republican Party. ...The Boehner budget deal is the last straw, and enough is enough. I cannot any longer defend this transparently dishonest charade called the Republican Party. ... I will begin working my tail off for the next twelve months to organize Independents to help elect Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as President of the United States.

The sudden implosion of the supposedly inevitable ascension of establishment Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to the office of Speaker of the House, now occupied by his mentor John Boehner, has shown the Capitol Hill Republican establishment to be a fragile edifice ready to collapse. Paul Ryan. Conservatives should not be suckered into propping it up any longer by abandoning their battle to elect principled conservatives to run the House of Representatives. But that is exactly what is going on in Washington right now as those establishment politicians who stand to lose out if new leadership is elected and...

House Speaker John Boehner said on CBS’s "Face the Nation" this morning that there will be no government shutdown—thus signaling that the House of Representatives he will lead until the end of next month will not send the Senate a continuing resolution that Democrats there would filibuster because it prohibits funding of Planned Parenthood or that President Barack Obama would veto for the same reason. In response to a follow-up question from host John Dickerson, Boehner said he was "sure" the funding bill he will put through the Republican-majority House will need Democratic votes to pass. The law currently funding...

After the sixth suicide in his old battalion, Manny Bojorquez sank onto his bed. With a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam beside him and a pistol in his hand, he began to cry. He had gone to Afghanistan at 19 as a machine-gunner in the Marine Corps. In the 18 months since leaving the military, he had grown long hair and a bushy mustache. It was 2012. He was working part time in a store selling baseball caps and going to community college while living with his parents in the suburbs of Phoenix. He rarely mentioned the war to friends...

VETERANS’ SUICIDES. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a moving and sobering account of one unit of veterans from Afghanistan who have had an extremely high incidence of suicide – and what the living members of the unit are trying to do to save each other. The report bring to life the ongoing struggles of these soldiers, even years after they have returned from combat, and how even those most determined to survive can end up overwhelmed, and taking their lives. The system in place to help them didn’t seem to be working, so these vets created their...

I am a proud American who believes that America has held – and still holds – a very sensitive and special place in the affairs of mankind on Planet Earth. I believe that America has been divinely blessed and protected in our two centuries plus of existence. I believe that America has been a counter balance that has cancelled out a lot of tyranny, evil and conquest, and admittedly, we have made a lot of mistakes. But on balance we have exerted a certain Pax Americana in the international affairs of mankind. It took a lot of old fashioned guts...

The State Department is anticipating that the U.S. will admit up to 8,000 Syrian refugees in Fiscal Year 2016. In written responses to the Senate Judiciary Immigration and the National Interest Subcommittee Republicans obtained by Breitbart News, the State Department reveals that it is expecting the U.S. will accelerate its acceptance of Syrian refugees next year. “As of July 30, the United States has admitted 1,042 Syrian refugees in FY 2015 and anticipates admitting a total of 1,500-1,800 Syrians this fiscal year. We anticipate admitting 5,000-8,000 Syrian refugees in FY 2016,” the State Department wrote. The Obama administration’s effort to...

First, an admission: I have seriously underestimated Donald Trump. After spending more than three years tracking the construct of the GOPe strategy to elect Jeb Bush, and having lost the most single important battle in May 2014 to stop it, I was deflated and disenfranchised. Few were willing to accept the road-map and sheer level of Machiavellian strategy deployed by the professional political class. Every single prediction (tripwire) which stems from understanding the construct was triggered in the exact sequence. We resigned ourselves to the outlook that Tom Donohue, Mitch McConnell and their team were going to pull it off....

As Americans learn the dangerous details of President Obama’s deal with Iran, Republican leaders should admit their mistake in passing Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) bill that reversed the process for treaty ratification. Instead of a treaty requiring approval from two-thirds of the Senate, the Corker bill allows the Iran deal to be disapproved by a simple majority in both houses—subject to a certain presidential veto, which requires two-thirds of both houses to override. Under the Corker procedure, Obama can make a nuclear arms treaty involving Iran with the concurrence of just one-third of each house of Congress, instead of two-thirds...

Unless the US Congress votes in opposition, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal with Iran with go through. What really happened and why did it happen the way it did? What happened is gradually becoming clear. It is revealed daily just how horrendous the deal really is. On every point — enrichment, centrifuges, stocks of fissile material, inspections, sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members and businesses, "snapback," etc. — the Obama administration caved completely. Concessions on ballistic missiles and arms sales were thrown in at the last minute; the administration lied about it all, while Iran...

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday said it will no longer require incoming U.S. citizens to pledge that they will "bear arms on behalf of the United States" or "perform noncombatant service" in the Armed Forces as part of the naturalization process. Those lines are in the Oath of Allegiance that people recite as they become U.S. citizens. But USCIS said people "may" be able to exclude those phrases for reasons related to religion or if they have a conscientious objection. USCIS said people with certain religious training or with a "deeply held moral or ethical code" may not...

John McCain's betrayals Exposed By Vietnam Vets And POWs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hr37eE0nO8&feature=youtu.be

Carnival Corp. is steering a course toward Cuba. The world’s largest cruise ship company announced Tuesday that it had received approval from the U.S. government to operate cruises to the island nation as a provider of cultural exchange programs.

Paul Ryan, Boehner, McConnell et al. Over the weekend an anniversary was marked with little fanfare — the second anniversary of the implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement passed with the usual fanfare, supported by the usual suspects. Barack Obama hailed the agreement’s implementation on March 15, 2012. In the middle of his re-election campaign, he cheerfully promised the agreement would increase American exports to South Korea by $10 billion and would create 70,000 U.S. jobs. One of Barack Obama’s signature efforts for his second term is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal...

On Friday, there will likely be a vote on fast-tracking President Obama's most progressive trade deal(s) in history. Here is why the House should vote no on granting the president what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called "an enormous grant of power." 1. Obama is a terrible negotiator, so he needs full oversight. Remember the Iranian nuclear deal, the China climate deal, the Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl release deal? These are just three examples that prove a simple fact: Obama is not a very good negotiator when it comes to representing U.S. interests. Fast-track trade authority denies Congress the...

ANALYSIS/OPINION: The civility chorus may at last be getting what it wants, a shutdown of debate in the name of piety and good manners. Honest debate frightens the chorus, whose sopranos and tenors forget that debate, sometimes gentle and sometimes loud and robust, is what Congress is meant to be about. Rep. Paul Ryan, once the tough numbers cruncher for the Republicans, has been the eager point man for President Obama in the campaign to give him authority to make unilateral trade deals that include far more than mere trade. Mr. Ryan is having trouble dealing with partisan stress on...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican leaders pushed a new plan for raising taxes through the Kansas House early Friday morning, hours after top aides to GOP Gov. Sam Brownback warned them that failing to erase a budget deficit risked funding for universities and invited a downgrading of the state's bond ratings.

Traitor is strong language, but in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote on a bill that was supposed to reaffirm the Senate’s constitutional power to consent to President Obama’s as yet still undefined and undisclosed nuclear treaty with Iran there is no other way to describe the actions of Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations The bill Corker rammed through the Foreign Relations Committee is worse than no bill at all. What Corker’s bill does is, in its post-markup form, require the president to submit for congressional review the final nuclear agreement reached between Iran, the...