Free Republic

TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I have to say one thing, one more thing, one more time. I do not like -- and I've got a Reuters story: "Marco Rubio Emerges Champion of Battered Republican Establishment." Another Reuters story, headline: "Republican Cruz Calls Iowa Win a Victory for Conservative Grassroots." I do not like, speaking for myself, I don't like this idea that Marco Rubio is all of a sudden being labeled as an establishment candidate. I know that Rubio's got the baggage of that Gang of Eight bill and I know that in many people's minds he's got the baggage of wanting...

Billionaire Paul Allen has given millions of dollars to conservation causes over the years, including ones that support ocean exploration and preservation. But earlier this month, his 300-foot yacht Tatoosh allegedly caused significant damage to a protected coral reef in the Cayman Islands. The anchor and chain of the vessel allegedly damaged 14,000 square feet of reef on January 14, according to Cayman Islands' Department of Environment. The incident occurred in a protected area of Grand Cayman called the West Bay replenishment zone, which is near popular scuba diving sites. The M/V Tatoosh was "moored in a position explicitly directed...

The sex attacks that took place in Cologne on New Year's Eve were simply a "matter of public order" and had nothing to do with the refugee crisis, Jean-Claude Juncker’s inner circle believe. The European Commission will be the "voice of reason" and tell the public that there is no link between the migration crisis affecting the continent and attacks on women in Germany, internal minutes disclose, amid growing concerns at a "xenophobic" backlash. The minutes of the European Commission's weekly cabinet meeting from January 13 hint at officials' fears that the events in Cologne could turn public opinion sharply...

One Clinton at a time, please. The private invite to Chelsea Clinton's Wednesday night fund-raiser, to be held at a swanky Upper East Side residence, reads that it's in support of her mother's 2016 presidential bid. But some of the big spenders plunking down the big bucks to attend say Chelsea's future in politics has been the talk of her campaign rallies. "You're seeing the beginning of Chelsea Clinton preparing to run," says a donor who attended Chelsea's rally at Dr. Paul Boskind's Midtown home last week, where "limited availability guest" entry started at $250 and $2,700 "champion" tickets included...

In 1999, Donald Trump claimed to be "pro-choice in every respect," to the point he would have opposed a ban on late-term and partial-birth abortions. His position at that time reflected the extreme edges of abortion ideology. A mere 14 percent of Americans believe third-trimester abortions should be legal. But Trump has since switched sides, a move that makes sense in today's political climate. Since the 1990s, abortion has become one of the starkest and most consistent lines of demarcation between Democrats and Republicans. It is virtually inconceivable that a Democrat opposing abortion or a Republican supporting legal abortion could...

Trying to predict who will be the next president is a sport on Wall Street. Hedge funds and banks spend enormous amounts of money, time and resources on trying to get an edge on who will win. The 2016 president election will dramatically change the asset allocation and exposure of everyone's portfolio. A few elections ago, when I was working on Galleon Group's trading desk, we spent all summer devising a game plan for each of the candidates: George W. Bush and Al Gore. We thought Bush would be great for health-care and defense stocks but Gore would be better...

On January 5, the Council on American-Islamic Relations offered a new service for the Muslim American families among its members: It released a guide titled "A Muslim parent's guide to talking to children about acts of violent extremism." It was meant to help parents guide their children through a new world in which the tide of Islamophobia, as well as the threat of violent extremism, is growing. The guide reflects a difficult new truth: Muslim parents in the US and Canada today no longer just have to worry about giving their kids the "birds and the bees" talk. They must...

George W. Bush, controversial among conservatives and hated by liberals, now outpolls the Democratic Party's heir apparent for its 2016 nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton. A January poll taken by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found the former president slightly more acceptable than the future "Madame President" by 3 percentage points. The poll asked respondents to say if they have "positive feelings" or "negative feelings" about various political figures. Forty percent said they had positive feelings for Hillary, while 49 percent said their feelings about her were negative, giving Mrs. Clinton a net approval of minus-9 percent. A mere 37...

Jennifer Lawrence is headed to Cuba - on the big screen, that is. The 25-year-old Oscar winner has signed on to star as Fidel Castro's onetime lover in Sony Pictures' "Marita," Entertainment Weekly reports. Now 76, Marita Lorenz had an affair with Castro during the Cuban revolution in the 1950s. Lorenz became pregnant at only 19, but had an abortion before leaving Cuba. She was then recruited by the CIA to assassinate then-Prime Minister Castro. In addition, the German-born Lorenz testified about the John F. Kennedy assassination and later penned two autobiographies – "Marita: One Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Love"...

A widely touted study claiming right-wing extremism is more deadly than Islamic terrorism in the United States has been debunked by a history professor who shows that, in actuality, there have been 62 Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in the U.S. for every one American killed by right-wing extremists. Professor Andrew Holt of Florida State College at Jacksonville recently published his analysis that discredits the widespread sentiment that right-wing attackers are the deadliest domestic terrorists in the U.S. "If you include the death totals from 9/11 in such a calculation, then there have been around 62 people killed in the...

By the end of the century, Muslims could outnumber Christians for the first time in history, according to a report released by the Pew Research Center. "Another way of thinking about it is Christianity had a seven-century head-start on Islam, and Islam is finally catching up," says Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at Pew. Christianity is currently the world's largest religion, making up a third of the world's population with 2.2 billion adherents. Pew research shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. The religious group will make up 30 percent of the world's population...

Actress Lena Dunham, who has been aggressively campaigning for Hillary Clinton, privately doubted the Democratic presidential candidate for discrediting women who made sexual assault allegations against her husband, former President Bill Clinton, according to a report Wednesday. Dunham, a fierce advocate for Planned Parenthood and other liberal causes, reportedly made the comments at a dinner party on New York’s Upper East Side months ago. The New York Times reported: She told the guests, at the Park Avenue apartment of Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO, that she was disturbed by how, in the 1990s, the Clintons and their allies...

Robotics are going to cause changes to the workforce in the next five years, but don't start running with those robot-takeover conspiracy theories just yet. About 5.1 million jobs will be lost by the year 2020 because of "disruptive labour market changes," predicts the World Economic Forum in a new study. Many of the factors driving change are technological, like the Internet, big data and robotics. The types of jobs most negatively affected by market disruptions are office and administrative, manufacturing and production and construction and extraction, according to the study. One of the biggest changes workers can expect to...

Islamic Imam Sami Abu-Yusuf of the Al Tawheed mosque in Cologne, Germany has made clear where the fault lay regarding the massive rape riot that rocked the western German city on New Year's Eve - the victims. As reported by the Breitbart London news service on 19 Jan. 2016, and also by Detroit News Time on 20 Jan. 2016, the Salafist holy man may be giving the anti-immigration groups more verbal ammunition. While hundreds more German women and girls muster up the courage to report to authorities the beatings, sexual assaults and flat-out rapings at the hands of a massive...

There might be a ninth planet in the solar system after all - and it is not Pluto. Two astronomers reported on Wednesday that they had compelling signs of something bigger and farther away — something that would definitely satisfy the current definition of a planet, where Pluto falls short. "We are pretty sure there's one out there," said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. What Dr. Brown and a fellow Caltech professor, Konstantin Batygin, have not done is actually find that planet, so it would be premature to revise mnemonics of...

I think my father, who died 10 years ago, was gay or preferred men, but I have no proof. I base my suspicion mostly on the way he looked at people, some magazine subscriptions and one conversation. I came out to my parents in the 1970s, while home from college. That same night, my father took me aside and confided that before his marriage he had an affair with a man but got psychological help and was "cured." He hoped I would do the same. He said, "Promise not to tell your mother — it will break her heart." I...

- The head of one of the nation's largest abortion advocacy groups has said that Democrats should stop talking about the traditional, two-parent family. Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, particularly faulted insurgent Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders for placing his socialistic economic policies ahead of liberal social issues, like abortion and redefining the family. Sanders' traditional emphasis on economics "showed a lot in that first debate when he kept saying, 'You know we need parental leave, so mommies can stay home with their babies,'" Hogue said. Last October, Sanders used child-rearing to promote federal legislation requiring employers to...

Donald Trump said he doesn't think Sarah Palin would be interested in becoming his running mate and trying for a second time to become vice president. "I don't think she'd want to do it," Trump said, although he added that he isn't thinking that far ahead. Appearing on NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday morning after Palin's high-profile endorsement of his White House bid, Trump deflected repeated questions about the 2008 vice presidential candidate as a potential 2016 running mate. Palin has not raised the matter with the GOP frontrunner. "As far as Sarah is concerned, never asked me about that,...

What on earth were the Clintons thinking? This question has been plaguing political watchers ever since Chelsea Clinton, in her first solo campaign outing for her mom last week, threw a punch at Bernie Sanders. -SNIP- But Chelsea? Such ungraciousness—and such disingenuousness—isn’t expected from Bill and Hillary’s only child. It cuts against not only her meticulously tended good-girl persona but also the deeply rooted mythology of Chelsea as the sweet, loyal, vulnerable humanizer of her ambitious, inscrutable parents. (For some, Clinton fille will forever be the sad-eyed teen binding Mom and Dad together during the summer of Lewinsky.) -SNIP- This...

Bill Clinton's hand appeared to tremble as he campaigned for his wife in Iowa, raising questions about his health. Observers noticed that his fingers appeared to shake as he delivered a speech over the weekend to a crowd of 5,000. In the past, he's said it's simply a condition of aging. In 2013, Clinton denied he had Parkinson's disease, saying: "I have a condition that sometimes you get with aging. You may have noticed it; my hand has a little tremor when I'm tired and a lot of people do when they’re older." During the 69-year-old's speech, he explained why...