Free Republic

Texas Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) fled from a press conference today instead of saying whether he would support House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) in a pending leadership vote.

When future generations of Americans look back at the Obama years and try to figure out why government was so dysfunctional, they shouldn’t discount the most obvious answer: The Democrat Party is run by idiots who would struggle with managing a child’s lemonade stand. What follows is a teaspoonful of stupid in the ocean full of “Derp” that are the Obama years. 1) They Bring Illegal Aliens Into The United States: One of the most fundamental jobs of the U.S. government is securing our borders in order to keep foreigners from entering our nation at will. Not only has the...

Details about the Syrian family of the three-year old boy, who drowned as they made their way to Europe from Turkey on a small dingy, began to emerge recently and some things do not add up. According to The Wall Street Journal, Abdullah Kurdi, the little boy’s father, was living in a relatively safe area in a Turkish town for three years while working on construction sites for 50 Turkish lira (roughly $17) a day. However, Kurdi told a Syrian radio station it was not enough to support himself and his family and he relied on his sister Tima Kurdi,...

Current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump maintains a strong lead in New Hampshire, while establishment pick Jeb Bush has steadily lost support in the early-voting Granite State, says the new NBC News/Marist poll. Trump is 16 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and has 28 percent of likely Republican voters backing him. Dr. Ben Carson came in third place with 11 percent of the vote, while Bush dropped to fourth place at eight percent. Bush has lost almost half his supporters in New Hampshire since July, when he was in second place behind Trump with 14...

The Eagles have released Tim Tebow, ending the former Heisman Trophy winner's bid to win the No. 3 quarterback job for Chip Kelly in Philadelphia. Tebow was one of 22 players released Saturday by the Eagles, who also cut veteran offensive lineman John Moffitt and rookie running back Raheem Mostert. All NFL teams must reduce their rosters to 53 players by 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, but Tebow appeared to be in contention for a roster spot after Philadelphia traded Matt Barkley to the Arizona Cardinals on Friday. The move leaves Kelly and the Eagles with two quarterbacks on their...

A gun manufacturer in Florida has designed an assault rifle featuring Christian symbols - in the hope it will never be used by 'Muslim terrorists'. Spike's Tactical in Apokpa is selling the powerful weapon, called the Crusader, for $1,395. It has a Psalm on one side and the Knights Templar Long Cross – a symbol of the Christian Crusades to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims - on the other. The Bible verse, Psalm 144:1, reads: 'Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.' Muslim groups have condemned the divisive gun, which...

CNSNews.com) -- Milwaukee County Sherriff David A. Clarke Jr. criticized the idea that President Barack Obama’s call for reforming the police is helping law enforcement and is instead weakening “the institution of policing,” adding that the solution is to “fix the ghetto” and stop trying to “fix the police.”Sheriff Clarke made his remarks during an interview with Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade on Monday, who launched the discussion by talking about the execution-style killing of a deputy sheriff in Texas last Friday; the suspected killer, a 30-year-old black male, was arrested and charged with “capital murder” in that crime...

Second Amendment groups are accusing the gun control lobby of putting law-abiding owners of firearms in danger by urging people to call the police on anyone carrying a gun in public. As more states relax rules about open-carrying of guns, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has taken to social media to urge the public to assume gun-toters are trouble, and to call the cops on anyone they feel may be a threat.

MADISON — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker denies he's a career politician — even though he has been in elected office since he was 25 years old and first ran for office when he was 22. The 47-year-old Republican presidential contender said in an interview with CNBC, released Tuesday, that he is "just a normal guy" and rejects the career politician label despite being in politics for most of his adult life. "A career politician, in my mind, is somebody who's been in Congress for 25 years," Walker said.

Lindsay Graham, as part of the taunt-war he’s having with Donald Trump, says that if Trump wins the GOP nomination, it will mean the end of the Republican Party. He’s right, but Trump means the end of the Republican Party even if he doesn’t get the nomination. I wrote a few weeks ago that Trump represents the Jump the Shark moment of the party. The GOP has been a rickety, unsustainable contraption of policy prescriptions that don’t add up, don’t really represent the coalition’s actual members, and is based on a backward-looking set of views appealing to an ever-shrinking demographic....

Referring to Donald Trump and his proposals for a wall and immigration, Bush said, “How are you going to stop all of the remittances without violating their civil rights? This guy is now the front runner, he should be held accountable as I am, he should be asked how he should pay for it. Why don’t you prove to me it’s practical?” “I’ll tell you what they say on the border,” Bush continued, “it would tear apart their community, would hurt their economic activity, and it’s not needed, and there are better ways to deal with this…”

Advocates for mass-migration are using skewed financial claims to smear Donald Trump’s popular border proposals, which actually would help the near-bankrupt Social Security and Medicare programs. For every illegal migrant household that leaves the United States under Trump’s plan, Americans would recoup nearly three-quarters of a million dollars ($719,350), according to 2010 data collected by Heritage scholar Robert Rector. But business interests want the migrants to stay. That’s because migrants help lower the cost of Americans’ wages, but also because the migrants spend their wages — plus taxpayer aid — at retail stories and rental agencies. For example, the American...

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said Monday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican presidential candidate, is "tightening the noose, literally" around African-Americans. Moore, a black lawmaker from Milwaukee, made the comment during a phone call with reporters that coincided with Walker campaigning in the early voting state of South Carolina. Moore said Walker was "literally campaigning around the state, saying you don't want to be like Milwaukee, while at the same time really tightening the noose, literally, around African-Americans." "He cut his teeth on 'three strikes and you're out' mandatory minimum sentences — really, you know, trail 'em, nail 'em...

But what if come October all we have is Bushies lacking all conviction, Trumpers full of passionate intensity, and a bunch of uninspiring also-rans? I devoutly hope this isn't the case. But what if it is?

Spreadsheet lists names, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords of US military and government staff, but marines say information is out-of-date A group calling itself the Islamic State hacking division has published the details of 1,400 mostly US military and government personnel, urging supporters to attack those listed. The spreadsheet, published online on Wednesday, exposes names, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords. Those listed include members of the marine corps, Nasa, the state department, air force and FBI. Supporters of Isis on Twitter seized on the breach, posting personal details of soldiers and government staffers and encouraging lone wolves to...

America and the Republican Party are dead. America was murdered by Barack Obama and his supporters. The Republican Party was murdered by John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the US Chamber of Commerce. Bringing them back to life is not something we should bank on happening. The number of people who see America as being on the wrong track hovers above 65% and it has not been less than 61% since mid-February. Approval ratings for the Republican Party are at historic lows. Both are dead. The Hippocratic Oath advises Doctors to, “First do no harm.” Their job is to help mend...

A team of Spanish police experts flew to the French island of Corsica on Tuesday to retrieve a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso that was smuggled out of Spain, where it is considered a national treasure. A spokesman for Spain's Civil Guard said four police experts in national heritage and several Culture Ministry officials flew to recover the painting, "Head of a Young Woman," which is valued at 24 million euros ($26 million). The officer said they expect to return with the painting later Tuesday. The work is owned by Spanish banker Jaime Botin, brother of the late Emilio Botin, former...

It was his birthday and Obama was grouchy. “It’s my birthday and I’m going to be blunt,” Obama told the Jewish leaders meeting with him. When they complained that, “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he was unapologetic. “If you guys would back down, I would back down from some of the things I’m doing,” he warned. By that he meant that if they stopped objecting to the Iran deal, he would stop accusing critics of his nuclear sellout to Iran of being money-grubbing warmongers. Obama complained, “It's been a...

Protesters who claimed affiliation with the Black Lives Matter movement stormed the stage during a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Seattle on Saturday, taking over the microphone and forcing Sanders to leave without ever speaking. Moments after Sanders took the stage at Westlake Park, two women and one man climbed the stage and confronted the Democratic presidential candidate, demanding a chance to speak. After several moments of confusion and confrontation, an event organizer took the microphone and said the protesters would be allowed to speak before Sanders.

The title of this short piece is actually the title of an essay by Paul Fussell, the writer, literary and cultural critic who just passed away at the age of 88. His New York Times obituary notes his “withering scorn for the romanticization of war,” which was due, in part, to his own experience of battle in World War II as an infantryman wounded in southeastern France. His most well-known book is probably The Great War and Modern Memory (about World War I), of which Steven Hayward at Power Line says: Fussell managed the extraordinary feat of weaving together a...