Free Republic

Speaker Ryan has made it crystal clear that House Republicans' number one priority is to shield American taxpayers from a bailout of Puerto Rico My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.—Errol Flynn Due to Puerto Rico’s gross habits, the commonwealth has amassed a total debt of over $72 billion and has already defaulted on $221 million of its’ debt. When unfunded liabilities (pensions) are included, these additional costs bring the total value of their debt closer to $165 billion, approximately $150% of its’ GDP.

Hillsborough is not over! In the longest running inquest in British legal history and possibly the biggest policing cover up ever, a Coroner’s Jury found retired Police Superintendent David Duckenfield and other senior commanders responsible for the unlawful killing of 96 soccer fans. The unlawful killing finding was the key component of the 14 counts and now invites criminal manslaughter charges to be filed. That decision will be taken by Assistant Police Commissioner John Stoddart, appointed directly by Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012 to run Operation Resolve. It is the official investigation that would then refer evidence to the...

The NEW WORLD ORDER is nothing more than the old world order reborn No, this is not an article suggesting that we storm the castle of government, armed with torches and pitchforks, demanding redress, although many would say it is about time. That mob shown in the photo represents the 60% of Democrats demanding or embracing communism (Politico). Spare me the usual substitute cliché like socialist, progressive, liberal or the left. It is merely lipstick on a pig. A communist takeover of our nation has been underway for many decades. Our education system, while we were sleeping, has been busy...

A very classy, luxurious five-state landslide I suppose a #NeverTrumper can comfort himself with the notion that no one expected the five mid-Atlantic states that voted last night to be kind to the Cruz/Kasich alliance. But did anyone expect this? Trump easily defeated rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz in all five states that held contests, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware, with a margin of victory rivaling that of his home state of New York a week ago. He was on a path to winning the vote in every single county in each state.

Praying, Monsieurs Buchanan and Prager, is always better for the Christian soul than preaching People who posit that “God is dead” in online ramblings never stop trying to crawl under the skin of everyday Christians. They bewail the times, the climes and the culture. They seem to want us to believe that the only way up is down.

The United States Marine Corps aviation wing is suffering from the burden of 15-years’ worth of fighting and budget cuts. Fox News ran an exclusive story about this predicament on April 17. The article reported that the vast majority of U.S. strike fighter aircraft are not airworthy. But it wasn’t just F-18s grounded due to a lack of parts, maintenance or other complications. “Only 42 of 147 heavy-lift CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters are airworthy,” Fox reported. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken their toll on combat aircraft. For more than a decade, the Marine Corps has been called upon...

After a big win in Wisconsin earlier this month, it looks like the all-important statewide delegate selection process could leave Team Cruz at a serious disadvantage. I’m told by several people familiar with the situation that the constitution of the Republican Party of Wisconsin gives the presidential campaign that wins the state’s popular vote the prerogative of picking 15 of the 18 statewide delegates and 18 of the state’s 18 alternate delegates to the Republican National Convention. Though Governor Scott Walker endorsed Ted Cruz and clearly has a close working relationship with the Wisconsin GOP, the Republican Party of Wisconsin...

Over a hundred universities and colleges have embraced the concept of having "assault weapons" on campus.  It is worth noting, that when the university administrations buy the weapons for their own use, the menacing nomenclature of "assault weapon" is magically transformed into "semi-automatic rifles". Campus administrations all over the country who have been claiming that allowing adults who have concealed carry permits on their campus will chill free speech and academic freedom, have no such concerns with having "assualt weapons" on campus, as long as the weapons are in the hands of the people they command.  From abcnews.go.com: Once...

Up to this point I think it may have been problematic if you had states where Trump & Cruz were 40/40. So linking yourself to a national campaign may have had alienated all the cruzers or Trumpsters. Like Stutzman or Todd Young (Indiana) could hitch themselves to one campaign. Why doesn't Trump and Cruz both endorse Stutzman?

From yesterday’s post regarding thoroughly corrupted republics, Machiavelli* found that even when a few wise laws are passed, corrupt institutions in society and government will turn the law away from their intended, good purposes. To possibly recover, one of two things must happen. Either prudent men along the way step in to introduce reforms as incremental corruption is detected, or a large single stroke of reform is necessary when the debasement of society and government is evident to all. Since the republic in his discussion is already thoroughly corrupt, it would appear that the first of his possible solutions has...

In the H.G. Wells novel, The Time Machine, the Eloi, are a brain dead, zombie like community who put up no resistance as they are hunted and destroyed by the evil Morlocks. Today’s active duty Army is starting to resemble the Eloi as they willingly accept every absurd, destructive directive from the Morlocks in the Pentagon and the White House, while operating in a trance from reveille to taps every day. The Army’s leaders, from the Chief of Staff down to senior NCO’s (non-commissioned officers, aka sergeants) are suffering from a massive case of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is defined...

Ted Cruz called a basketball hoop a ‘basketball ring’ while recreating scene from Hoosiers https://t.co/r49zSp3sgK pic.twitter.com/APYXent9Xf— For The Win (@ForTheWin) April 27, 2016 @ForTheWin Did he successfully throw the puck through it?— wormbolt (@wormbolt) April 27, 2016 @ForTheWin @RealGlenMacnow No wonder Bobby Knight endorsing Trump.— Robert DeSandre (@carigi12) April 27, 2016 @ForTheWin @ShaneWatch Weirdest man who ever lived.— Kris Pigna (@KrisPigna) April 27, 2016

With all of the furor surround the rise of Donald Trump, Republicans have missed a chance for a little drama concerning an upcoming rift in the (normally monolithic) Democrat party. For out of nowhere, Senator Bernie Sanders has been making an actual attempt at running for the Democrat nomination. Some may say this is a fool's errand, for the following reasons. 1) Name recognition. Despite its placement in the liberal northeast, Vermont, where Sanders hails from, is known for little more than Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to the rest of the country. It is not an oil state like...

I see in a few counts that there are "Superdelegates" assigned to Cruz this evening. Where did I miss this ? Does the Republican party have superdelegates now ? Am I missing something ?

Nate Silver was a once respected pollster. His polls were accurate a lot of the time, though they always had a left wing bias. Now, Silver has completely lost it, predicting a Mark Zuckerberg-David Petraeus ticket. Not only does Silver predict such a ridiculous idea as a presidential ticket, he also claims that Zuckerberg-Petaeus would win 428 Electoral College votes.(GRPHIC-AT-LINK)Earth to Nate Silver, Mark Zuckerberg isn’t even 35 years old yet and therefore not eligible to be President of the United States. What dope Nate Silver is smoking, I’d like to get my hands on some. This guy has completely...

Two tone-deaf security guards at the 9/11 Memorial got tough with some wide-eyed middle school kids visiting the city for the first time from their small town in North Carolina — because they sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” “You have to stop. This is considered a public demonstration!” one guard barked at the patriotic teens, their Waynesville Middle School music teacher, Martha Brown, told The Post. The guards insisted the group needed a permit to sing, according to Brown. “Some of the students were very upset and confused. I told the children, ‘This is a place where you need to respect...

What happens when a university research department is tasked with conducting a study of the harmful effects of fracking on ground water and other environmental concerns? Well, that depends on who provides their research money and what the results turn out to be. In the case of the University of Cincinnati, a lot of their funding comes from groups which have a vested interest in proving how harmful fracking is so it’s hardly a surprise that they lost interest in the study when it failed to produce any evidence of ground water contamination near commercial fracking sites. Jeff Stier, senior...

How a 19th century "human transcribing machine" inspired generations of linguists. A 1900s-era bicycle—Edmond Edmont's tool of the trade. (Image: Public Domain)Back in 2013, millions of Americans spent a few minutes clicking through this dialect survey. They threw their lots in with "crayfish" or "crawdad." They marveled at the number of words for rubbernecking. At the end, they likely received their geographic diagnoses with pride. Despite coming out on December 20, this quiz was the New York Times's top-trafficked story of that year. A decade earlier, when linguist Bert Vaux wrote the questions that inspired the quiz, he was thinking about...

Hidden among the ballyhoo about a collaborative freeze in production growth, a less visible but far more effective dynamic has affected, and likely will affect, oil supply and price: military intervention. There have always been three routes out of the unsustainably low prices: natural decline/growth of supply/demand, collaboration constraints on supply, and military conflict. Since January, while the talk of a growth freeze had no effect whatsoever on actual supply, the natural decline/growth did reduce the overhang by a couple of hundred thousand barrels of oil per day. Meanwhile, two little-discussed and less-understood military interventions took a combined 900,000 bopd...

Are you tempted by nice dividends such as BP’s 7.53 percent and Shell’s 7.31 percent? Long-term investors are. They’re lapping up the oil majors on dips to cash in on their impressive dividend yields in hopes that the massive rally in crude oil from the lows of $27.10 per barrel is an indication that crude has bottomed out and higher prices are around the corner. The large investors are pursuing the oil majors for their stability and safety, which has boosted their prices, but even after the rise, prices remain below their 2015 highs. The oil majors are expected to...