Free Republic

Colin Kaepernick is still a free agent, and an NFL inside source told The Daily Caller Monday that the former 49ers quarterback has no one but himself to blame. Despite the ongoing narrative that Kaepernick’s very public political views are preventing any NFL teams from offering him a roster spot, TheDC’s source claims Kaep himself has turned down at least one contract in the hopes of stirring up a media frenzy that eventually leads to a more lucrative deal for the 27 year old vet.

The word on everyone’s lips in Washington now — in newsrooms and advocacy groups, in congressional offices and embassies — is “firehose.” As in the high-pressure stream of White House orders. The daily deluge of Donald Trump’s tweets blaming “so-called” judges for future terror attacks and assailing Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s clothing line for poor sales. The tsunami of statements inflating the murder rate and hyping the terrorist threat, while aides mind-bendingly blame the media for not covering massacres in Bowling Green and Atlanta that never happened. With each new volley, drinking from the Trump firehose feels ever more...

The time had come to fire Khloé Kardashian. But first, Donald Trump had a question. “What’s your charity?” Trump asked. They were filming “The Celebrity Apprentice,” the reality-TV show where Trump schooled the faded and the semi-famous in the arts of advertising, salesmanship and workplace in­fighting. Most weeks, one winner got prize money for charity. One loser got fired. ... “I’m going to give $20,000 to your charity,” Trump said, according to a transcript of that show. He didn’t. After the show aired in 2009, Kardashian’s charity did receive $20,000. But it wasn’t from Trump. Instead, the check came from...

The gunman who slaughtered 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was a confused, gay man who drank heavily, a man who claims he was his lover for two months told Univision. Omar Mateen, the deranged Muslim shooter behind the massacre, held a grudge against Latino men he met at the popular gay club because he felt used by them, the man told the network. “I’ve cried like you have no idea. But the thing that makes me want to tell the truth is that he didn’t do it for terrorism,” the man told Univision Noticias anchor Maria Elena...

U.S. intelligence officials said Friday they are concerned Venezuela is slipping into a crisis that could lead to a coup attempt or a government crackdown on dissent. Reuters reports: In a bleak assessment of Venezuela’s worsening crisis, the senior officials expressed doubt that unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro would allow a recall referendum this year, despite opposition-led protests demanding a vote to decide whether he stays in office…They said one “plausible” scenario would be that Maduro’s own party or powerful political figures would force him out and would not rule out the possibility of a military coup. Still, they said...

This story is an example why the republican party consistently loses against the progressive left. In response to the ridiculous, albeit recent, NC bathroom laws (which the MSM are having fun bashing conservatives on the head with) the Ted Cruz constituency wants to write bathroom laws into the 2016 republican party platform. Yes, yes, unfortunately that’s the modern right-wing cultural GOPe. Look over there, shiny thing, shiny thing… quick, go chase it….. quick make a law to control it…. bathrooms, gays, transgenders… oh noes, the humanity ! WASHINGTON DC – After he lost the Republican nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz’s backers...

Ted Cruz's campaign produced and released this attack ad overnight, after Donald Trump came out in favor of allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice, rather than the bathroom corresponding to their birth. The Cruz campaign has seized on this issue as a clear indicator that Donald Trump is "not a conservative." "Leave it the way it is," Trump said. "There have been very few problems." "Should a grown man pretending to be a woman be allowed to use the women's restroom?" asks the Cruz campaign, calling the bathroom issue "PC Nonsense that is destroying America." "North...

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is set to tour the border Friday, officials say. House Speaker David Gowan will lead the tour, which will also include Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who dropped her run for the White House.

Congressional Republicans vowed Thursday to kill President Barack Obama's plan to add a $10-per-barrel tax on oil production to pay for "green" transportation projects, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling it "dead on arrival" and "an election-year distraction." "The president expects hard-working consumers to pay for his out-of-touch climate agenda," the Wisconsin Republican said. "A $10 tax for every barrel of oil produced would raise energy prices -- hurting poor Americans the most." [...] President Obama will include the plan in his budget proposal that he will present to Congress on Tuesday. The fee will be phased in over five...

California Republican Carly Fiorina said Friday it is "insulting" for radio host Rush Limbaugh to call a student activist a "slut" and "prostitute" because she is pushing for employers to pay for contraception. "That language is insulting in my opinion," said Fiorina, who launched an unsuccessful Senate bid against longtime California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer in 2010, on "CBS This Morning." "It's incendiary and most of all, it's a distraction. It's a distraction from what are very real and important issues," the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard said. At least one advertiser, The Sleep Train, has pulled its advertising from...

The outrage over Cecil's death is absurd when you think of the other, bigger problems which people are happy to ignore There is a new, pointless ride opening in town designed to give users an instant but ephemeral rush. It isn’t the slide down the ugly, unnecessary Olympic tower, but the convenient and free outrage bus currently stopping on your street and picking up passengers for Cecil, the beautiful dead lion. Out of any and all proportion to the severity of his dreadful act of animal murder, the dentist who killed Cecil has become an international focal point of hate...

Senate Bill 539, which would prohibit the naming of public buildings and roads in California after Confederate leaders, advanced from its sole policy committee Tuesday on a 7-1 vote. It heads next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for fiscal consideration.

As calls grow to remove the Confederate flag from public spaces across America's South, Vanessa White says she questions whether that would mark real progress for black Americans like her.... White’s view, she says, was shaped by exposure to racism as a child and also by a family she describes as dysfunctional. Her single mother was an alcoholic, and her brothers began committing crimes at an early age. She says she grew up never feeling like a real person because of her race....

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is asking Congress to formally authorize war against Islamic State militants, offering a draft resolution that says the Islamic State "poses a grave threat."

’m a New York Giants fan. So besides erecting a makeshift shrine to Odell Beckham Jr. and soaking in schadenfreude at the expense of Philadelphia Eagles fans, I haven’t found the last couple of weeks of the NFL regular season super interesting. And yet, many teams that were eliminated from the playoffs appeared to pack stadiums – despite frigid temperatures and the promise of mediocre football. That prompted an argument over this question: Who goes to the meaningless NFL games at the end of the season and why?

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When the lights change at the Shibuya crossing in Japan's capital, one of the world's busiest pedestrian thoroughfares, hundreds of people with their eyes glued to smartphones pick their way over the road. Despite being engrossed in the latest instalment of Candy Crush or busy chatting with their friends on messaging app Line, most manage to weave around cyclists, skateboarders and fellow Tokyoites. But the growing ranks of these cellphone addicts are turning cities like Tokyo, London, New York and Hong Kong into increasingly hazardous hotspots, where zombified shoppers appear to be part of vast games of human pinball.

A hatchet-wielding attacker charged a group of New York City police officers posing for a photograph on Thursday, wounded two, one critically, before the assailant was shot dead, police said. The officers were on foot patrol when they were asked by a freelance photographer to pose for a picture on a Queens street at about 2 p.m., a New York Police Department spokesman said. Suddenly a man carrying a hatchet charged the officers, swinging it and striking one officer in the right arm and then swinging it again and striking a second officer in the head, the spokesman said.

News about the spread of the Ebola virus has been an increasing focus for market participants in recent days. Despite rising media coverage, Ebola seems to have had little discernible effect on consumer sentiment to date. However, as Goldman Sachs notes, the "fear factor" associated with Ebola appears more significant than in past instances of pandemic concern. While expert opinion sees the likelihood of a significant outbreak of Ebola in the US as very low, it is likely any negative macroeconomic consequences are most likely to be transmitted through fear or risk-aversion channels.

I encounter so many struggling pastors. And unfortunately, I know so many who used to be pastors but no longer hold the position. It may be through a blatant sin or a casual drifting from doing what they knew to be right, but it landed them in disaster. A pastor friend of mine said recently, “We need healthy churches and we need healthy pastors.” Amen. Agreed. We must stand guard. What are we guarding against? No single post would be perfect. Obviously sin, but I can’t address everything that gets in the way of a healthy pastor. I can only...