Free Republic

The Obama administration's decision to extend Endangered Species Act protections for two breeds of lions is a turning point for the lions now roaming Africa, advocacy groups say. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signaled in a document obtained by the Associated Press that it would classify the lion as threatened or endangered across its entire range in Africa. The agency has scheduled a noon conference call to discuss its findings. The Humane Society of the United States projects that American trophy hunters imported 5,647 lions in the past decade. The group's president and CEO, Wayne Pacelle, said he expects...

It’s terrible for a number of reasons, but it’s on the way to the Senate anyway. A bipartisan vote closes out the House effort on the FY2016 budget, with the same kind of bloated and opaque legislation that Republicans were supposed to stop supporting: The House has passed a $1.14 trillion spending bill to fund the government through next September. It’s a peaceful end in the House to a yearlong struggle over the budget, taxes, and Republican demands of President Barack Obama. … Senators are expected vote on the budget measure in combination with a year-end tax plan that gives...

Private Ryan failed miserably on his first assignment. The troops are demoralized, but very much used to it. Instead of growing a set of balls, he grew a beard. As if growing a beard makes you a man. Like I’ve told my 20-year-old son on more than one occasion, just because you can grow a beard doesn’t mean you have a set of balls, doesn’t make you a man. Indeed, Private Ryan doesn’t have a set of balls. But he does have a beard. What an effort it takes to grow a beard. Growing a beard is something post-adolescent guys...

The 2,009 page fiscal 2016 spending deal that the Republican House leadership released today authorizes $1,205,146,000,000 in federal outlays between now and the end of fiscal 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and it does not prohibit funding of Planned Parenthood, according to the House Appropriations Committee. The spending bill is paired with a separate 233-page tax bill. “We are maintaining all of our pro-life protections, including the Hyde Amendment, and we are making cuts to the UNFPA program,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said of the omnibus spending bill at a press conference today. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s...

There has been a big question mark about the sincerity of Donald Trump's views, given that he has spent 99% of his adult life supporting liberal positions, including amnesty for illegal aliens,and saying at one point that Hillary Clinton was a really good secretary of state.But he was said to be changed when he ran for president earlier this year. He spoke rousingly against illegal aliens and against Muslim immigration.But all of a sudden he has taken a leftward tack,perhaps figuring, erroneously,that this is the best way to outflank Ted Cruz. Trump has actually criticized Ted Cruz for failing to...

Imagine if you were faced with this situation. Your doctor, after running a battery of tests on your six year-old daughter, tells you that she is suffering from a rare cancer that is almost invariably fatal. "But there must be something doctor," you blurt out. "Aren't there some new drugs available that work in at least some cases?" The doctor replies, "Yes, there are some drugs that do show promise in treating your daughter's cancer. The problem is that they have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and therefore I can't get any of them. And...

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz told NPR in a Wednesday interview that the term “climate change” is the perfect “pseudoscientific theory for a big-government politician who wants more power.”In the interview, Cruz recalled the global cooling arguments from the 1970s, telling NPR’s Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep that some of the same researchers worrying about global cooling as a threat in the 70’s, are the same people now telling people global warming is a problem today.The Texas senator asked Inskeep if he remembered back 30 or 40 years ago when politicians were telling people ” … that we were...

Britain's Tories fail to reform costly tax credits for the middle class.David Cameron's government last week abandoned its plan to reform Britain's expensive working-family tax credits. U.S. politicians who think this kind of "pro-family" tax policy is a good idea-hello, Marco Rubio might take note. The centerpiece of Mr. Rubio's tax plan is an increase in the child tax credit to $2,500 from $1,000, despite its cost and lack of growth incentive. Such ideas may have a short-term political appeal, but eventually they become entitlements that benefit the left.

Three things about Donald Trump have now become clear to the Republican establishment: 1) He might not implode before people start voting for president next year. 2) He could actually wind up as the Republican nominee for president. -snip- Right to Rise raised more than $103 million in the first six months of this year. It spent - as I mentioned above - $28 million on ads. Let's say the organization has spent another $15 million on fundraising, consulting fees and other miscellaneous costs. And let's assume, just for the sake of this argument, that Right to Rise hasn't raised...

THE vice president of the United States was unhappy. In 1983, a "Conservative Digest" poll of conservatives found that 64 percent of right-leaning party leaders wanted George H.W. Bush replaced on the 1984 Reagan ticket. "Light reading," Bush scribbled across a cover sheet as he sent a copy to his friend James Baker - adding a frowning face. Reagan would have none of it - he liked and appreciated Bush. But the gulf between establishment and insurgent Republicans has only grown in the ensuing decades. The elder Bush's struggles through the years with a restive right shed light on the...

President Obama is nothing if not predictable. Required by law to release plans for new regulations twice a year, the administration has consistently done so just before major holidays, when few are paying attention. Thus, it was no surprise to see his fall 2015 regulatory agenda released last Friday, as many Americans focused on Thanksgiving week with family and friends. [...] ... The regulations span the full scope of American life, ranging from labeling requirements for pet food, new test procedures for battery chargers, mandated paid sick leave for contractors, and automatic speed limiters for trucks to a dozen new...

During a town hall Thursday evening in Iowa, Donald Trump told voters the "only way" to make college more affordable for low-income students is "to start some governmental program." The Republican presidential hopeful was asked what measures he would take, as president, to ensure middle-to-low income Americans are able to "pay their tuition [and] afford books while they're going to school." "Well the only way you can do it is you have to start some governmental program and you have governmental programs right now," Trump told the moderator during the forum, which was held at a local community college. "They...

Before my fellow conservatives jump immediately to defend Candidate Carson, I would ask that they read the following short column. Some years ago, I became aware of the extraordinary and remarkable career of Dr. Benjamin Carson via the 2009 movie "Gifted Hands" ,a film in which Cuba Gooding, Jr. portrayed the doctor. I even talked about him to my friend and colleague Laurie Roth who, subsequently, interviewed him on her Radio show. Dr. Carson seemed to be an honorable man, conservative and true to his word. However, since he officially began his campaign for the position of POTUS, something appears...

Sen. Marco Rubio blocked numerous immigration-enforcement bills when he served as speaker in the Florida House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009. "Rubio blocked any efforts to deal with the problems of illegal immigration on the local or state level," one former politician from South Florida, who has known Rubio since his city councilman days in West Miami, told The Daily Caller. "He said it was because we had bigger things to deal with on the state level. Maybe that's true. But he didn't even let bills to the floor when they sailed through committees," the politician, who declined to...

[VIDEO AND AUDIO OF MARK LEVIN'S SHOW] On his radio show yesterday evening, Mark “The Great One” Levin blasted Donald Trump and Marco Rubio for smearing their rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. As PJ Media reported earlier, Trump recently went off on Carson during a campaign event in Iowa. The billionaire businessman smeared Carson, comparing him to child molesters and declaring he’s unfit to be president because he had violent impulses as a teenager. He even went so far as to blast Carson’s religiosity, basically saying it’s all a lie to swoon Iowa voters:...

When Congress left town for the August recess, it did so without coming to an agreement on a long-term transportation bill. Instead, the president signed a three-month extension that set the stage for another showdown this fall. More than 30 such temporary extensions have passed since the last multi-year transportation bill expired in 2011. The inability of Congress to come together to pass a transportation package has frustrated the myriad special interests whose lobbyists want assurances that the dollars will keep flowing for years, and not just months, to come. And the media, which seldom miss an opportunity to push...

John Kasich, polling nationally at about 3 percent for the Republican presidential nomination, made a gamble during the last GOP debate that if he fought to be heard, even out of turn, it might help his chances. The conservative media heard him clearly, but they didn't like the noise. Republican pollster Frank Luntz concluded from one of his focus groups in New Hampshire that Kasich "nosedived every other time he spoke.""John Kasich couldn't help himself — interrupting, interjecting, intruding or worse," Luntz wrote at FoxNews.com on Wednesday, a day after the debate. "According to our voters, he was 'rude ......

Pediatric neurosurgeon and 2016 GOP frontrunner Ben Carson has easily fended off most of the spurious attacks from the establishment press, but growing conservative outrage over the Carson campaign's recent announcement of support "with reservations" for Obama's deeply controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal may prove more tricky. Ironically, the Carson camp claimed Carson supported the deal, dubbed "ObamaTrade" by critics, as a "counterbalance to China's influence" just two days after the Obama administration publicly invited the brutal Communist Chinese dictatorship and Russia's Vladimir Putin to join the TPP as well. Among many of Carson's conservative supporters, the pro-TPP position is likely...

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch says Donald Trump didn't perform as well during Tuesday night's debate as in past contests. "Great debate," Murdoch tweeted Tuesday of the fourth GOP debate in Milwaukee, hosted by his Fox Business Network. "All did well - Carson, Bush, others did well, perhaps Rubio best of all. "With all doing well, Trump did not stand out like past," Murdoch added. "Kasich, Cruz talked nonsense on banking, Trump likewise on immigration."

Conservative presidential candidate Ben Carson says the $7.25 federal minimum wage should be raised. “I think, probably, it should be higher than now,” Carson told CNBC’s John Harwood in an interview Friday. Carson added that government assistance often provides more than the minimum wage in several states, allowing people to ignore the long-term benefits of a job.