Free Republic

Two big Clinton stories landed last week. The first is that Hillary Clinton destroyed the electronic copies of her State Department emails on her private server after the State Department subpoenaed her emails. The second is that Hillary Clinton had an aide running a "secret spy network" that was, among other things, feeding her information on Benghazi, according to a report by Pro Publica and Gawker. Earlier this month, I noted the myriad ways that Clinton running her own private email server breathes new life into the Benghazi investigation, but this last revelation takes things to a whole new level....

UNITED FEDERATION OF HUMANITY LOCAL 15120 OFFICIAL GRIEVANCE FORM Grievance filed against: Steel Valley Education Association Grievance alleged: The union representing Park Elementary School teachers filed a cruel, insensitive, unnecessary and ultimately impotent grievance against Steel Valley School District. Said grievance involving a special needs student violates the compassion, decency and concern for others clauses of its collective bargaining agreement with the UFH, hereafter referred to as “humanity.” The grievance was incalculably unintelligent and an enormous public relations gaffe that casts Park teachers as complete cads. Those aren't explicit violations of the CBA but should be noted for the record....

The lack of it is not a positive, but it can be overcome. Here's how.The entry of Ted Cruz into the presidential race touched off an interesting discussion about the relevance of experience, especially governing experience and executive experience. Some said Cruz is nothing more than a conservative Barack Obama because he is a first-term senator with little executive experience. Others countered that all the executive experience in the world wouldn’t have made Obama a good president because he is so wrong ideologically. As someone who once ran for president because I thought my experience as a business executive could...

In an almost-certainly futile attempt to get shrieking critics to tell the truth about it.You're certainly well aware of the hysterics concerning Indiana's version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - pretty much the exact same law that's on the books in 19 other states and at the federal level, and absolutely not something that permits petty discrimination against blacks, gays or anyone else. But the shrieking goes on because that's the point. It's designed to make you think Indiana has done something unprecedented and horrific. If you listen to the shrieking instead of actually reading the bill, you just...

Ponder the dire significance of the extraordinary story from MSNBC(!) last Friday, reporting on US “incoherence” in the Middle East, the exploding chaos there, and the shocking news Arab states like Egypt, the Saudis, and UAE are withholding intelligence and launching attacks without consulting the US. Why? Because they don’t trust Obama not to leak information to Iran. In seeking closer ties with Iran, Obama is threatening every other strategic US relationship in the region and candidly committing alliance-cide against America’s closest ally there, Israel. The president, as chief executive and commander in chief may be the captain of foreign...

The Middle East witnessed something radically new two days ago, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia responded to a plea by Yemen's president and led a 10-country coalition to intervene in the air and on the ground in the country. "Operation Decisive Storm" prompts many reflections: Saudi and Egypt in alliance: Half a century ago, Riyadh and Cairo were active in a Yemen war, but then they supported opposing sides, respectively the status-quo forces and the revolutionaries. Their now being allies points to continuity in Saudia along with profound changes in Egypt. Arabic-speakers getting their act together: Through Israel's early...

Never in the history of our nation have we experienced such a frighteningly inept and incompetent presidential administration. One could make a good argument that this would apply in all areas, but it’s particularly applicable in the area of foreign policy and national security. Right after Bowe Bergdahl’s release in the trade for five senior Taliban commanders, National Security Advisor Susan Rice described the Army deserter as serving with “distinction and honor”. The very same soldier now charged with ‘desertion and misbehavior’ by the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice. Charges that can send Bergdahl to a military prison for...

As Jesus warned, “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). Nothing has borne out this reality in recent decades like that exasperating spectacle called the Republican presidential primary. These last few GOP horse races have been jam-packed with would-be conservative presidents who, after infighting with largely simpatico opponents, have canceled each other out, limped off to lick their wounds and left the perpetually underwhelmed GOP base to stay home and not vote for “imminently electable” establishment paragons like Presidents Dole, McCain and Romney. Divide and conquer. That’s how the “moderate” RINO establishment plays the...

Last week (March 21st) the New York Times ran a puff piece on New York City leader, Mayor Bill De Blasio, “reaching out” to faith based organizations and marveled that an avowed secularist has built strong alliances with certain religious groups. The Times opined, “…as the leader of a famously secular city, Mr. De Blasio has been emerging as something unexpected: a champion of religion whose administration has advanced the cause of faith groups in the unlikeliest of public squares.” The story notes that NYC public schools will henceforth close on two Muslim holy days, the city will relax health...

The Arab League is a multi-national organization made up of 22 nations ranging from Mauritania on the West coast of Africa to Qatar in the Persian Gulf. It was reported over the weekend by the BBC that members of the Arab League "have agreed to create a joint Arab military force" on the heels of military action by Egypt and Saudi Arabia against Shiite rebels in Yemen. This is important here, because so many American voices have questioned why the U.S. is sending more ground forces to Iraq (and keeping forces in Afghanistan) and leading the air war with U.S....

“Deeply and deceptively interesting,” is how New York Times Magazine described Sen. Harry Reid in January of 2010. Deceptive indeed. Five years later, Reid’s cache of secrets in the Senate chamber puts Harry Potter’s wizardry to shame. Two chambers—House and Senate—comprise the U.S. legislature. Our bicameral structure helps keep raw political power in check. Yet without term limits, a bicameral legislature is not enough to restrain the ambition of politicians like 75-year-old Reid who have held public office for decades. Grab your candle and follow me as I guide you through the backmost rooms of the Senate chamber, where Reid...

In 1979, the year before Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan as their presidential candidate, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and conservative activist Paul Weyrich founded the Moral Majority. It was at the Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, Liberty University, founded by Rev. Falwell, where Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) just announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Although Cruz made no reference to the Moral Majority in his remarks, his thinking clearly is where Falwell’s and Weyrich’s was when they founded that organization. That getting a widely politically inactive universe of church going evangelical Christians politically engaged can change America. Cruz made...

Vladimir Putin scheduled the war to retake the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – for the first half of the last Final Four college basketball game. He anticipated, correctly, that the President’s focus would be on his brackets instead of Russia’s plan to recapture its former glory. The signs were all there – prior aggression in Georgia, the invasion of Ukraine, the unscheduled “maneuvers” in both Russia and Belarus adjacent to the panicking Baltic States’ borders, the provocative military flights into their airspace and that of nearby Sweden. And the administration, fixated on pushing through its domestic agenda...

"...Mr. Bush, a privileged scion who married a Mexican woman and boasts of being bicultural, reflects his polyglot adopted hometown, Miami, and state. He is telling Republicans, in effect, that they must accept a changing country: that the path to the presidency will be found through appealing to voters who may not look like them, and with a standard-bearer whose state and immediate family resemble tomorrow’s America.Mr. Walker, a small-town minister’s son who met his wife, a Milwaukee native, at a Wisconsin barbecue joint, is a product of one of the most politically and racially polarized regions of the country,...

Link only, per agreement with Gannett

A veteran senator who let his mistress drown in a car he recklessly drove into a pond, rented a brothel for an entire night in Chile and sought meetings with communists is being honored by the Obama administration this month. Ted Kennedy received his posthumous accolades from the Department of Labor (DOL) with an induction into the agency’s “Hall of Honor.” The recognition is meant to showcase the life-changing contributions that a unique group of people have made on the American way of work, according to the agency. A special panel comprised of the Solicitor of Labor, the Assistant Secretary...

Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants are under discussion at the Minnesota Legislature — again. Previous attempts to allow the undocumented to drive legally have failed, but this year the measure should pass. As public safety officials have argued for years, the change would make roads safer. Opponents of the proposal say that the licenses would enable voter fraud, cause homeland security risks and reward those who have already broken immigration law. However, in this case public safety interests trump other concerns. The driver’s license dilemma is yet another result of America’s broken, outdated, schizophrenic immigration policies. The honest reality is...

The first time most of us heard the name Bowe Bergdahl was when President Obama stood with his parents in the Rose Garden, announcing that after having been captured in Afghanistan in June, 2009 he was going to be released – traded, as it turns out, for five top-level terrorists being held in Guantanamo Bay. It’s funny how hindsight works. I’ve known several military families in my day, but Bergdahl’s parents – his father especially – not only did not strike me as a military dad: he struck me as man who had never put on a tie in...

In the Bible, Esau sold his birthright for a mess of potage -- some red lentil soup, to be exact. Looking at the week’s events, it seems that this country has sold its glorious birthright of constitutional government by honest men and women for a mess of potage -- a false promise of hope and change delivered by a glib huckster and his shady friends. The deceit and lawlessness of Obama and those around him and the consequences have never been clearer than they were this week. Nothing shows better the unprincipled nature of the administration and the acquiescence of...

As you begin to look closely into the actual organization of the Mexican cartels operating throughout the world, you quickly learn that they are set up and function much like any fortune 500 company. They are multi-level organizations, having everything from a CEO level down to the assembly line level worker, and everything in between. They have a strict code that they live by for the most part, which has a strong “machismo” factor, and makes their structure and practices look much like the old Italian mafia organizations. The exception being of course that today’s Mexican cartels have crossed all...